But not wiser!
Morning Chas. Nice to see that you are up and at em. Don’t forget your walk today. I was so glad that I got some walking in before and after the rain today.
Good morning! It was so nice to see your smiling face yesterday. All but 3 finals done. One last assignment to finish before Monday. The light is getting brighter.
Good morning!
Roessler, so glad you are getting over another hurdle! What a relief it will be.
So happy to hear about those who are getting out for walks. I am praising God that my knee injury does not require a full time cane so far. I am really gentling my leg so it can heal. I landed in an unusual way so it’s only occasional movements that give me pain. Getting up off a low toilet is a bit difficult so I keep my cane handy then. And going down the stairs is better with the cane.
Biden was in Georgia yesterday bragging on all the Georgia cronies. Enough said.
Yesterday as I was researching picturebooks on Amazon, I came across a food related ABC book by America’s Test Kitchens that was Editor’s pick (I assume Amazon Editor). I found it to be an odd book in that it uses cooking terms, some of which I am not familiar, in the book. For the children of chefs it could be good, but for the average young child, I think it would be counterproductive. They need to tag what they are learning onto something they know. This book seemed to be all about the adults in my thinking. It made me sad to see it. The A is for artichoke was fine, but so many of the other unfamiliar words did not seem useful.
Here is the book if anyone is interested.
Beneath the book are little dots to give different views. This is a board book for youngest children. C is for carmelization.
Chas, an artichoke is not an onion. I’ve had one once and it wasn’t anything I’d seek out. I think there are different ways to eat one, but the way I was shown, you have a dip, and you take each individual piece (leaf) of artichoke out, one at a time, dip it in the dip, and then get the middle of the artichoke between your teeth and squeeze out what’s inside (which isn’t very much–the equivalent of half a small blueberry, maybe? it was 25 or 30 years ago). It seemed a silly and time-consuming way to get a snack, and pretty expensive too.
One of my friends in Chicago, the man she ended up marrying, when he took her on her first date, he went to the store to buy her a flower and they either didn’t have any flowers or he didn’t find anything he liked. So he bought her an artichoke. He ended up buying her artichokes several times, and they had some at the bridal shower and/or wedding.
Janice, young children love learning new words, the bigger the better. Since that picture book calls itself a “foodie alphabet,” I assume it would be bought by people who are big into fancy meals, and it’s a way to teach their children a bunch of new words. Picture books get read over and over, so a child wouldn’t learn all the words the first time, but would learn them over time. I wouldn’t buy it for my own child, since I’m not a foodie–but I might buy a child a book that has other big words, such as caterpillar.
The flowers, by the way, are spring beauty, one of my favorite wildflowers. The flowers are all white with pink stripes, but they vary greatly in how bold the pink is. This is one of the more colorful ones; some look completely white until you look super close, but this one is nearly purple. The spring beauty is probably finished for the year here. It blooms for about a month and is one of the first of the spring flowers.
I used to love bringing home picture books from the library. This book might also just be put out on a coffee table for a little fun conversation among adults or older children.
You make good points, Cheryl, about the book appealing to foodie parents, just as I said it would appeal to chefs who are parents. And Wesley loved big words such as the names of dinosaurs that I had to learn to pronounce to teach them to him. So you are right about some children love big words, but as a former preschool teacher, this is not a book I would choose for teaching children in the general population, especially some who struggle with much easier words. A lot of children tend to give up when faced with something so complex because they think learning is too hard. A five syllable word like caramelization (sp?) is fun for the gifted, but a stumbling block for many.
An artichoke is a thistle, unless it is a Jerusalem artichoke, which is a tuber of a type of sunflower. Growing up we had a patch of Jerusalem artichoke. We dug the tubers up and sliced and fried them and they tasted quite good. Our first taste of artichoke thistle was of pickled artichoke and it wasn’t what we were expecting. Eldest was doing culinary experiments and had read about artichokes and decided to try them – after carefully explaining that artichokes were not at all the same as Jerusalem artichokes – but it was a failure. I think I have had them since, as one vegetable in a mix of vegetables, but they didn’t stand out in any way.
I’ve always wondered who thought of eating the first artichoke–and did they do so before you could melt butter? 🙂
A Black woman lived with us for several years in CT–thanks be to God, she saved us so many times by her Godly presence–and was invited to a formal dinner one night at the Coast Guard Academy.
“What if they serve something I don’t know how to eat?” she asked me.
“Don’t worry about it,” I replied. “They know it’s a formal dinner and it will only be easy to eat food since you’re all dressed up.”
The Coast Guard chef served artichokes.
Seven of the eight people at the dinner just looked at the artichokes in dismay. Finally,her date the Lieutenant picked up one and said, “This is how we always ate them at my house,” and proceeded to demonstrate.
And then they all ate theirs.
The only artichoke I ever really liked–and we lived near Watsonville, the center of artichoke growth in California–was battered and deep-fried in Rome.
But that was only once, thank you, and I don’t need to try one again. 🙂
I loved artichoke growing up. It was prepared like my French/Canadian/Louisianan grandfather made them. Boiled, you pull off a leaf and dip in butter. Drag your teeth across it for the good stuff, toss the rest in a pile. Don’t eat the thorn. We rarely had it and I loved it.
I know I don’t have to tell you this. But men, eating by themselves, develop terrible table manners. Elbow on the table, wrong utensil, etc.
I’ve said before. If it were possible, a nation of men without women would be back in to the caves in a couple of decades.
A former boyfriend and I were introduced to artichokes as appetizers at a favorite restaurant we’d frequent on our weekly dinner dates. We both thought it was quite adventurous to eat such an exotic “thing” and were quite wary at first. Anything beyond pizza or a steak-and-potato or rice seemed wildly daring in those days. But yes, with melted butter, it was quite good — and we both learned to really like it. I don’t think I’ve had artichoke since, though.
I’m glad it is Friday. We’re getting a warm-up of weather here, dry and toasty, but not much beyond 80 degrees thankfully. The forecast has clouds and mid-60s starting again tomorrow, much more to my liking. May Gray and June Gloom are fine by me.
I like artichokes. I mostly like the artichoke hearts. They are really good roasted if you can find the frozen ones. I make a spinach and artichoke casserole for Thanksgiving and a artichoke dip make with mayonnaise and parmesan cheese. You can serve it cold if you make it the night before, or you can bake it and serve it warm.
Michelle, maybe starvation had something to do with eating the first artichoke. Although, when one considers the things that people have decided to try as food, maybe it was just curiosity. Humans are as curious as they are resourceful.
I am thinking curiosity. My son is not starving but has probably tasted just about every plant on the property. Dandelions beware. And hollyhocks. A lot of thistles are edible.
Oh, this looks interesting but conflicts with two other Zoom meetings I have.
“The Pilgrim’s Progress with
Dr. Derek Thomas
May 3, 2021
The Christian life is one of conflict against the world, the flesh, and the devil. And that fact serves as a palpable reminder that we cannot trek through it without the One who has already overcome the world.
Recently, Dr. Derek Thomas joined us in our library to record The Pilgrim’s Progress, a special message for our new Rare Book Room Series. Join us online on Monday, May 3, at 8:00 p.m. ET to hear Dr. Thomas speak on John Bunyan and his classic book The Pilgrim’s Progress. This lecture provides a close look at Bunyan’s life, helping us discover how his writings may equip us not just for now, or for next week, or for next year, but for the entire journey that lies ahead of us as Christians.
This message will stream on our YouTube channel, as well as Facebook and Twitter.
The Rare Book Room Series features individual academic lectures from distinguished speakers, highlighting books from the Rare Book Room on the Reformation Bible College campus. Interested in visiting and seeing it for yourself? Schedule a tour today.”
I like your story Michelle. What a graceful and thoughtful way her date handled everything. Manners and etiquette are not meant to be used to embarrass people but to make them feel comfortable. I was once at a function where the girl next to me exclaimed she had TWO forks, why did she have two forks? I was young and didn’t know what to say or do. Luckily someone else handled it.
Notice there isn’t a place for your cell phone. One Christmas we had 3 of the 4 here (We’ve never had the 4th and his family) so I had to make them all 3 give me their phones. They really hated it when I made them tell me their favorite Christmas memory.
Does she have a summer job? I heard this week that Ridgecrest in NC is looking for college age staffers to help with campus in case anyone might know of someone. That is basically what Wesley did every summer at Covenant College while he attended there.
Camps are a great place for spring/summer jobs 🙂
I heard about a poke salad plant once and googled it to find out why it was called that. Turns out if you eat it boiled, you will get very sick. If you boil it twice you’ll still get sick. BUT, if you boil it a third time you can eat it just fine. WHO FIGURED THAT OUT?!
I was reading the funnies. There is a “click here if you need help” along with it.
I shouldn’t have, but I did. It took me almost five minutes to get back. I still don’t know why I should click there
I know better, but did it anyhow. Violated the “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” principle.
I am probably the only person you know who has eaten poke salad. It wasn’t bad. I wouldn’t go out of my way to eat it again. It grows wild in the south. During the Civil War the berries were crossed and used for ink. I am sure that was when they were hungry enough to figure out how to eat it.
Kim. When my sister and I were children (think the early 1930’s. before you were born), my parents both worked in a cotton mill. A black lady we called “Aunt Maggie” cared for us on weekdays. Aunt Maggie lived with us. She was a Christian and would kneel and say her prayers every night. She taught us to pray the “Now i lay me down to sleep….” .Prayer.
She would gather stuff from “nature” and fix it for us. We never thought black-white discrimination, or some such. She was the lady who kept us and we loved Aunt Maggie. We (my sister and I) visited her home once. She lived a few miles south of Winnsboro, SC where we lived.
Reminds me of one of the Elisha and the sons of the prophets stories, the one where there was a famine and someone found wild gourds to add to the prophets’ dinner, but the gourds turned out to be poisonous. Elisha saved the day by telling them to add grain, rendering it edible (II Kings 4:38-41).
The mission doctor Helen Roseveare, who worked in the Congo tells a similar story in one of her books. They once had an accidental large delivery of an antidote to poison. At the time it seemed a waste of shipping. Some months later, there was a large wedding in a nearby village. The hosts, trying to eke out resources, had found and used wild yam in the cooking and Dr. Roseveare was called in when the guests began showing signs of severe poisoning, including loss of consciousness. The antidote that had been delivered accidentally was the right antidote for wild yam poisoning.
Tomorrow starts another month. As I was walking by, I started to change the calendar. But stopped. If I change the calendar now, what will I do tomorrow?
When you reach 90, and everyone you know is gone to the Bahamas, that is a valid question..
As I recall, the cassava plant, a widely used food plant, is loaded with cyanide until cooked properly. I had read about it being a long process of baking, boiling, etc, several times, but sounds like there are different varieties with different prep needs, but none can be eaten raw. Kind of like elderberries. Who learned that? “Hey, little brother! take a bite of this, I think it is really good! Hmmm. Guess not.”
Chas, today Tiny asked about what day it was. She was told it was the last day of April and tomorrow May was beginning. I guess someone mentioned that the calendar would have to be changed, because later on she proudly showed her grandmother that she had changed the calendar in the dining room.
She has such a drive to learn. Today I found her sitting on the top of the steps leading to the basement, drawing. She showed me that she had drawn the correct number of steps and counted them. She was drawing what she saw, not just from her imagination – no one told her to, she thought up the exercise on her own. She is beginning to read and once again, she was the one who drove herself to learn so quickly, asking the adults how to spell new words at every opportunity. She is a sponge for knowledge.
The cashew nut is similarly poisonous raw. Any cashew you buy to eat has been cooked. The cashew fruit is fine to eat raw, yet while cashew nuts are used worldwide, the only people who eat cashew fruit are those who live where it grows.
Tiny must take after you a lot, Roscuro. I think sometimes it is harder for gifted children to find friends. Wesley was fortunate to get to attend Saturday School at Georgia State University when he was young. His pediatrician recommended it, and they had all kinds of fascinating enrichment classes for gifted students. Art and I were certainly familiar with the area since we had both attended school on that campus. Had I not been familiar with it I never would have enrolled him downtown. He had to have special testing to get in. His first class there was in the state of the art childcare center that the school used as their teaching on site day care center. It was a wonderful space fof the children. I had never heard of Saturday school until our pediatrician told me about it. I did feel badly that with it being on Saturday that the Jewish children in Atlanta would not be able to attend.
Roscuro: I’m sure the urge to learn is a valuable character trait. But it can be a problem for elders unless it is directed. Be sure tat she has useful material handy.
I mentioned Saturday school because it would be good for Tiny if something like that was near enough for her to attend. Gifted children often get neglected in regular school. In the church school Wesley started in the fall for 1st grade (until we began homeschooling in January) he and another boy were sent to the 3rd grade classroom to read books in the reading loft. It seemed like a privilege, but it was really neglect in that he and the other boy (Brittish) were not receiving instruction geared to the level they had attained. I think that situations like that can be the basis of why a lot of the gifted become underachievers.
It is a lovely day here in the forest and in the low 70’s. I made a Keto birthday cake for my birthday boy husband…hope it tastes as yummy as is looks and smells!! It’s chocolate!
We are keeping the calendar on the 30th until tomorrow…it’s his birthday all day 😊
May has begun on this side of the world. A cold, sunny day.
Artichoke hearts are one of my favorite foods. I love them even on pizza, the canned in water ones. I have one last can that I am hoarding here.
I think that you all would like them, great in salads.
Morning again, Chas, as we switch mornings. Lovely sunshine here. I better get on my ipad as I hear there is a young grandson who wants to facetime after school today. We won’t tell him that I am still in my pajamas.
Janice, her parents are planning on homeschooling. In fact, her mother does give short lessons when she is able – morning sickness is making that difficult right now. But we all take a hand in teaching them. I read most days to Tiny. We have finished ‘The Silver Chair’ and are now reading a classic children’s novel set in medieval England, ‘Adam of the Road’. Since Tiny still knows little of history, I took the opportunity to explain that back then there was no electricity and no powered machines. I have a pop-up book about castles and a picture book that shows the progression of an English village over the centuries, so have used those to illustrate what the setting of the novel we are reading looks like. She will ask me while reading what an unfamiliar word means – today it was ‘curfew’, although the book itself explains well unfamiliar concepts, so sometimes I tell her to wait while I read more. After we finished reading, we had an impromptu math lesson. Tiny had asked her grandmother for some apple, and my mother brought us each an apple, quarter on plates. Tiny, who has also begun figuring out addition, said that since she had four and I had four, there were eight pieces. I saw the opportunity to introduce the idea of multiplication with the two plates each with four pieces, so I explained that two fours are eight (Tiny had already been figuring out multiple ways to add up to the same number, i.e. 1+3 and 2+2 both equal four). Then my mother pointed that each piece was a quarter of an apple, so then she had a lesson in fractions. It is amazing how much can be taught using everyday things.
Sixth’s lesson presently, in which all of us, every day take part is to listen and think before acting. A child with a three year old brain, but the height and linguistic skills of a five year old can be downright hair raising. Water and breakable things attract Sixth like magnets.
Her grades are solid, 5 A’s and 1 B. Same for both semesters.
————
We are heading out of town to visit family on Monday so I’ll be mostly absent the next 5 days. I’ll post on the road M,T, W, but won’t be paying much attention. So police yourselves.
Chas and Mumsee are in charge until I return. 🙂
I was racing to turn a story in, late and after my deadline, doing a final read-through and line edit, when Annie started swiping things off the kitchen counter and making the loudest racket.
“STOP! What is wrong with you!?”
She just looked at me and meowed when I came out of the office to “serve” dinner.
Little green there, Cheryl? It is our outstanding maturity that brought us to the fore. The real knows that he has left you in good hands. I will have the chore chart up tomorrow, time to clean this place up….
I called two of my kids today. Got to talk to the little boy who is leaving and to tell him that I love him. Hard on everyone, especially the 4 1/2 year old.
Wandering Views 
It’s prettier than the one we had yesterday.
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But not wiser!
Morning Chas. Nice to see that you are up and at em. Don’t forget your walk today. I was so glad that I got some walking in before and after the rain today.
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Good morning! It was so nice to see your smiling face yesterday. All but 3 finals done. One last assignment to finish before Monday. The light is getting brighter.
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Cheering you on, Rene!
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Good morning!
Roessler, so glad you are getting over another hurdle! What a relief it will be.
So happy to hear about those who are getting out for walks. I am praising God that my knee injury does not require a full time cane so far. I am really gentling my leg so it can heal. I landed in an unusual way so it’s only occasional movements that give me pain. Getting up off a low toilet is a bit difficult so I keep my cane handy then. And going down the stairs is better with the cane.
Biden was in Georgia yesterday bragging on all the Georgia cronies. Enough said.
Yesterday as I was researching picturebooks on Amazon, I came across a food related ABC book by America’s Test Kitchens that was Editor’s pick (I assume Amazon Editor). I found it to be an odd book in that it uses cooking terms, some of which I am not familiar, in the book. For the children of chefs it could be good, but for the average young child, I think it would be counterproductive. They need to tag what they are learning onto something they know. This book seemed to be all about the adults in my thinking. It made me sad to see it. The A is for artichoke was fine, but so many of the other unfamiliar words did not seem useful.
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Here is the book if anyone is interested.
Beneath the book are little dots to give different views. This is a board book for youngest children. C is for carmelization.
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Beautiful flowers on the header.
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I don’t know if ever in my life, have eaten an artichoke.
It seems like a sort of onion.
I don’t eat onions.
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Chas, an artichoke is not an onion. I’ve had one once and it wasn’t anything I’d seek out. I think there are different ways to eat one, but the way I was shown, you have a dip, and you take each individual piece (leaf) of artichoke out, one at a time, dip it in the dip, and then get the middle of the artichoke between your teeth and squeeze out what’s inside (which isn’t very much–the equivalent of half a small blueberry, maybe? it was 25 or 30 years ago). It seemed a silly and time-consuming way to get a snack, and pretty expensive too.
One of my friends in Chicago, the man she ended up marrying, when he took her on her first date, he went to the store to buy her a flower and they either didn’t have any flowers or he didn’t find anything he liked. So he bought her an artichoke. He ended up buying her artichokes several times, and they had some at the bridal shower and/or wedding.
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It is not an onion. It is a thistle.
Good morning.
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Janice, young children love learning new words, the bigger the better. Since that picture book calls itself a “foodie alphabet,” I assume it would be bought by people who are big into fancy meals, and it’s a way to teach their children a bunch of new words. Picture books get read over and over, so a child wouldn’t learn all the words the first time, but would learn them over time. I wouldn’t buy it for my own child, since I’m not a foodie–but I might buy a child a book that has other big words, such as caterpillar.
The flowers, by the way, are spring beauty, one of my favorite wildflowers. The flowers are all white with pink stripes, but they vary greatly in how bold the pink is. This is one of the more colorful ones; some look completely white until you look super close, but this one is nearly purple. The spring beauty is probably finished for the year here. It blooms for about a month and is one of the first of the spring flowers.
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A What!
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I used to love bringing home picture books from the library. This book might also just be put out on a coffee table for a little fun conversation among adults or older children.
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You make good points, Cheryl, about the book appealing to foodie parents, just as I said it would appeal to chefs who are parents. And Wesley loved big words such as the names of dinosaurs that I had to learn to pronounce to teach them to him. So you are right about some children love big words, but as a former preschool teacher, this is not a book I would choose for teaching children in the general population, especially some who struggle with much easier words. A lot of children tend to give up when faced with something so complex because they think learning is too hard. A five syllable word like caramelization (sp?) is fun for the gifted, but a stumbling block for many.
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An artichoke is a thistle, unless it is a Jerusalem artichoke, which is a tuber of a type of sunflower. Growing up we had a patch of Jerusalem artichoke. We dug the tubers up and sliced and fried them and they tasted quite good. Our first taste of artichoke thistle was of pickled artichoke and it wasn’t what we were expecting. Eldest was doing culinary experiments and had read about artichokes and decided to try them – after carefully explaining that artichokes were not at all the same as Jerusalem artichokes – but it was a failure. I think I have had them since, as one vegetable in a mix of vegetables, but they didn’t stand out in any way.
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My family grew Jerusalem artichokes in our backyard garden. I really liked them except for them having the same effect as beans often produce.
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I’ve always wondered who thought of eating the first artichoke–and did they do so before you could melt butter? 🙂
A Black woman lived with us for several years in CT–thanks be to God, she saved us so many times by her Godly presence–and was invited to a formal dinner one night at the Coast Guard Academy.
“What if they serve something I don’t know how to eat?” she asked me.
“Don’t worry about it,” I replied. “They know it’s a formal dinner and it will only be easy to eat food since you’re all dressed up.”
The Coast Guard chef served artichokes.
Seven of the eight people at the dinner just looked at the artichokes in dismay. Finally,her date the Lieutenant picked up one and said, “This is how we always ate them at my house,” and proceeded to demonstrate.
And then they all ate theirs.
The only artichoke I ever really liked–and we lived near Watsonville, the center of artichoke growth in California–was battered and deep-fried in Rome.
But that was only once, thank you, and I don’t need to try one again. 🙂
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I loved artichoke growing up. It was prepared like my French/Canadian/Louisianan grandfather made them. Boiled, you pull off a leaf and dip in butter. Drag your teeth across it for the good stuff, toss the rest in a pile. Don’t eat the thorn. We rarely had it and I loved it.
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I know I don’t have to tell you this. But men, eating by themselves, develop terrible table manners. Elbow on the table, wrong utensil, etc.
I’ve said before. If it were possible, a nation of men without women would be back in to the caves in a couple of decades.
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A former boyfriend and I were introduced to artichokes as appetizers at a favorite restaurant we’d frequent on our weekly dinner dates. We both thought it was quite adventurous to eat such an exotic “thing” and were quite wary at first. Anything beyond pizza or a steak-and-potato or rice seemed wildly daring in those days. But yes, with melted butter, it was quite good — and we both learned to really like it. I don’t think I’ve had artichoke since, though.
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I’m glad it is Friday. We’re getting a warm-up of weather here, dry and toasty, but not much beyond 80 degrees thankfully. The forecast has clouds and mid-60s starting again tomorrow, much more to my liking. May Gray and June Gloom are fine by me.
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Good morning, or what’s left of it. Here are your Friday “funnines”.
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It mighta choked Artie, but it ain’t gonna choke me.
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I like artichokes. I mostly like the artichoke hearts. They are really good roasted if you can find the frozen ones. I make a spinach and artichoke casserole for Thanksgiving and a artichoke dip make with mayonnaise and parmesan cheese. You can serve it cold if you make it the night before, or you can bake it and serve it warm.
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Michelle, maybe starvation had something to do with eating the first artichoke. Although, when one considers the things that people have decided to try as food, maybe it was just curiosity. Humans are as curious as they are resourceful.
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Oh, yes, artichoke hearts. They were in the great salad that a friend dropped by for me some months ago from Nuke’s. They were excellent in that.
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I am thinking curiosity. My son is not starving but has probably tasted just about every plant on the property. Dandelions beware. And hollyhocks. A lot of thistles are edible.
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Oh, this looks interesting but conflicts with two other Zoom meetings I have.
“The Pilgrim’s Progress with
Dr. Derek Thomas
May 3, 2021
The Christian life is one of conflict against the world, the flesh, and the devil. And that fact serves as a palpable reminder that we cannot trek through it without the One who has already overcome the world.
Recently, Dr. Derek Thomas joined us in our library to record The Pilgrim’s Progress, a special message for our new Rare Book Room Series. Join us online on Monday, May 3, at 8:00 p.m. ET to hear Dr. Thomas speak on John Bunyan and his classic book The Pilgrim’s Progress. This lecture provides a close look at Bunyan’s life, helping us discover how his writings may equip us not just for now, or for next week, or for next year, but for the entire journey that lies ahead of us as Christians.
This message will stream on our YouTube channel, as well as Facebook and Twitter.
The Rare Book Room Series features individual academic lectures from distinguished speakers, highlighting books from the Rare Book Room on the Reformation Bible College campus. Interested in visiting and seeing it for yourself? Schedule a tour today.”
Â
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I like your story Michelle. What a graceful and thoughtful way her date handled everything. Manners and etiquette are not meant to be used to embarrass people but to make them feel comfortable. I was once at a function where the girl next to me exclaimed she had TWO forks, why did she have two forks? I was young and didn’t know what to say or do. Luckily someone else handled it.
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Derek Thomas is good, enjoy.
Kim, yes, so much flatware to navigate at one plate. Or good silverware in those cases, I suppose. 🙂
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Here we go.
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Notice there isn’t a place for your cell phone. One Christmas we had 3 of the 4 here (We’ve never had the 4th and his family) so I had to make them all 3 give me their phones. They really hated it when I made them tell me their favorite Christmas memory.
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Year 1 is over and the daughter is home until august.
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It was a quick seeming year, AJ? Every year seems to go by quicker for each one they attend. Now she awaits grades.
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Does she have a summer job? I heard this week that Ridgecrest in NC is looking for college age staffers to help with campus in case anyone might know of someone. That is basically what Wesley did every summer at Covenant College while he attended there.
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Not campus but camps.
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Camps are a great place for spring/summer jobs 🙂
I heard about a poke salad plant once and googled it to find out why it was called that. Turns out if you eat it boiled, you will get very sick. If you boil it twice you’ll still get sick. BUT, if you boil it a third time you can eat it just fine. WHO FIGURED THAT OUT?!
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I was reading the funnies. There is a “click here if you need help” along with it.
I shouldn’t have, but I did. It took me almost five minutes to get back. I still don’t know why I should click there
I know better, but did it anyhow. Violated the “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” principle.
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I am probably the only person you know who has eaten poke salad. It wasn’t bad. I wouldn’t go out of my way to eat it again. It grows wild in the south. During the Civil War the berries were crossed and used for ink. I am sure that was when they were hungry enough to figure out how to eat it.
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Kim. When my sister and I were children (think the early 1930’s. before you were born), my parents both worked in a cotton mill. A black lady we called “Aunt Maggie” cared for us on weekdays. Aunt Maggie lived with us. She was a Christian and would kneel and say her prayers every night. She taught us to pray the “Now i lay me down to sleep….” .Prayer.
She would gather stuff from “nature” and fix it for us. We never thought black-white discrimination, or some such. She was the lady who kept us and we loved Aunt Maggie. We (my sister and I) visited her home once. She lived a few miles south of Winnsboro, SC where we lived.
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Reminds me of one of the Elisha and the sons of the prophets stories, the one where there was a famine and someone found wild gourds to add to the prophets’ dinner, but the gourds turned out to be poisonous. Elisha saved the day by telling them to add grain, rendering it edible (II Kings 4:38-41).
The mission doctor Helen Roseveare, who worked in the Congo tells a similar story in one of her books. They once had an accidental large delivery of an antidote to poison. At the time it seemed a waste of shipping. Some months later, there was a large wedding in a nearby village. The hosts, trying to eke out resources, had found and used wild yam in the cooking and Dr. Roseveare was called in when the guests began showing signs of severe poisoning, including loss of consciousness. The antidote that had been delivered accidentally was the right antidote for wild yam poisoning.
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Tomorrow starts another month. As I was walking by, I started to change the calendar. But stopped. If I change the calendar now, what will I do tomorrow?
When you reach 90, and everyone you know is gone to the Bahamas, that is a valid question..
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As I recall, the cassava plant, a widely used food plant, is loaded with cyanide until cooked properly. I had read about it being a long process of baking, boiling, etc, several times, but sounds like there are different varieties with different prep needs, but none can be eaten raw. Kind of like elderberries. Who learned that? “Hey, little brother! take a bite of this, I think it is really good! Hmmm. Guess not.”
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Chas, today Tiny asked about what day it was. She was told it was the last day of April and tomorrow May was beginning. I guess someone mentioned that the calendar would have to be changed, because later on she proudly showed her grandmother that she had changed the calendar in the dining room.
She has such a drive to learn. Today I found her sitting on the top of the steps leading to the basement, drawing. She showed me that she had drawn the correct number of steps and counted them. She was drawing what she saw, not just from her imagination – no one told her to, she thought up the exercise on her own. She is beginning to read and once again, she was the one who drove herself to learn so quickly, asking the adults how to spell new words at every opportunity. She is a sponge for knowledge.
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The cashew nut is similarly poisonous raw. Any cashew you buy to eat has been cooked. The cashew fruit is fine to eat raw, yet while cashew nuts are used worldwide, the only people who eat cashew fruit are those who live where it grows.
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Tiny must take after you a lot, Roscuro. I think sometimes it is harder for gifted children to find friends. Wesley was fortunate to get to attend Saturday School at Georgia State University when he was young. His pediatrician recommended it, and they had all kinds of fascinating enrichment classes for gifted students. Art and I were certainly familiar with the area since we had both attended school on that campus. Had I not been familiar with it I never would have enrolled him downtown. He had to have special testing to get in. His first class there was in the state of the art childcare center that the school used as their teaching on site day care center. It was a wonderful space fof the children. I had never heard of Saturday school until our pediatrician told me about it. I did feel badly that with it being on Saturday that the Jewish children in Atlanta would not be able to attend.
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Roscuro: I’m sure the urge to learn is a valuable character trait. But it can be a problem for elders unless it is directed. Be sure tat she has useful material handy.
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I mentioned Saturday school because it would be good for Tiny if something like that was near enough for her to attend. Gifted children often get neglected in regular school. In the church school Wesley started in the fall for 1st grade (until we began homeschooling in January) he and another boy were sent to the 3rd grade classroom to read books in the reading loft. It seemed like a privilege, but it was really neglect in that he and the other boy (Brittish) were not receiving instruction geared to the level they had attained. I think that situations like that can be the basis of why a lot of the gifted become underachievers.
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It is a lovely day here in the forest and in the low 70’s. I made a Keto birthday cake for my birthday boy husband…hope it tastes as yummy as is looks and smells!! It’s chocolate!
We are keeping the calendar on the 30th until tomorrow…it’s his birthday all day 😊
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May has begun on this side of the world. A cold, sunny day.
Artichoke hearts are one of my favorite foods. I love them even on pizza, the canned in water ones. I have one last can that I am hoarding here.
I think that you all would like them, great in salads.
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Happy birthday to Mr. NJ!
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Good morning Jo.
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Morning again, Chas, as we switch mornings. Lovely sunshine here. I better get on my ipad as I hear there is a young grandson who wants to facetime after school today. We won’t tell him that I am still in my pajamas.
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Janice, her parents are planning on homeschooling. In fact, her mother does give short lessons when she is able – morning sickness is making that difficult right now. But we all take a hand in teaching them. I read most days to Tiny. We have finished ‘The Silver Chair’ and are now reading a classic children’s novel set in medieval England, ‘Adam of the Road’. Since Tiny still knows little of history, I took the opportunity to explain that back then there was no electricity and no powered machines. I have a pop-up book about castles and a picture book that shows the progression of an English village over the centuries, so have used those to illustrate what the setting of the novel we are reading looks like. She will ask me while reading what an unfamiliar word means – today it was ‘curfew’, although the book itself explains well unfamiliar concepts, so sometimes I tell her to wait while I read more. After we finished reading, we had an impromptu math lesson. Tiny had asked her grandmother for some apple, and my mother brought us each an apple, quarter on plates. Tiny, who has also begun figuring out addition, said that since she had four and I had four, there were eight pieces. I saw the opportunity to introduce the idea of multiplication with the two plates each with four pieces, so I explained that two fours are eight (Tiny had already been figuring out multiple ways to add up to the same number, i.e. 1+3 and 2+2 both equal four). Then my mother pointed that each piece was a quarter of an apple, so then she had a lesson in fractions. It is amazing how much can be taught using everyday things.
Sixth’s lesson presently, in which all of us, every day take part is to listen and think before acting. A child with a three year old brain, but the height and linguistic skills of a five year old can be downright hair raising. Water and breakable things attract Sixth like magnets.
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Kim, thank you for telling me it was likely during the Civil War that people had to eat poke salad. That would make sense.
I love hearing about intelligent, curious children.
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fifty seven
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Janice,
Her grades are solid, 5 A’s and 1 B. Same for both semesters.
————
We are heading out of town to visit family on Monday so I’ll be mostly absent the next 5 days. I’ll post on the road M,T, W, but won’t be paying much attention. So police yourselves.
Chas and Mumsee are in charge until I return. 🙂
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Do titles come with those jobs?
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Chas will be busy changing the calendar on Saturday
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Thanks Kevin…the cake was a hit! And it fit right in with his diet 😊
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I yelled at the cat but she didn’t care.
I was racing to turn a story in, late and after my deadline, doing a final read-through and line edit, when Annie started swiping things off the kitchen counter and making the loudest racket.
“STOP! What is wrong with you!?”
She just looked at me and meowed when I came out of the office to “serve” dinner.
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The calendar is already changed.
I want everyone to behave. I don’t want to hafta report you to Mumsee.
You know what that means.
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Party time!!!!!
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I don’t know why AJ picked the blog’s biggest troublemakers to put in charge.
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I’m going with mumsee.
My gardener offered to remove the pine tree tomorrow.
I’ve sent an email to the landscaping company to see if they think it’s time to “call it,” as the ER staff would put it.
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Little green there, Cheryl? It is our outstanding maturity that brought us to the fore. The real knows that he has left you in good hands. I will have the chore chart up tomorrow, time to clean this place up….
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LOL
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Bit premature aren’t you Mumsee? The Real doesn’t relinquish control until Monday. Talk about power grabs…
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Chores?
Really?
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This should be a fun few days. And I have met both of our new leaders. Wow
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I called two of my kids today. Got to talk to the little boy who is leaving and to tell him that I love him. Hard on everyone, especially the 4 1/2 year old.
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Donna:
Yes, really>
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I want everyone to straighten up for the next couple of days.
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Ah Chas, but it’s Saturday!
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Saturday counts.
But Saturday isn;’t up yet.
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AJ picked me and mumsee to keep this rowdy bunch in line.
We intend to do that.
I am taking charge.
Mumsee is doing all the work.
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I am about to spill my coffee in fear of the new management/leadership. This could rock our world.🥺
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