corn | Brick House

Welcome to the third topic in the Elements/Seasons series with Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge. This week we have Earth/Harvest.

In Cee’s description, she mentions that earth people tend to be well grounded, nurturing, earth-mothers. That they like to bring others together and make good mediators and reliable friends, and that they enjoy both preparing food and eating. The color for earth is yellow.

Hmmmm. Well, I seem to fit the description on some points, not on others. I am definitely “earthy” but not necessarily ‘earth mothery-ish”. I think I make a good mediator but not always a reliable friend (I forget birthdays, major surgeries, weddings – you know- minor details), and I love eating, but my food preparation skills involve being the only one in the house that can flip an egg without breaking the yolk, but only if I happen to remember that I am cooking and don’t wander off after something shiny. Yellow is totally my favorite color though, so I should get some earthy points for that.

I have only a few photos today, and to be honest, most of them stink from a “great shot” standpoint. But as usual, they all have a story. That said, here are my entries for this week.

First off – the dirt pile that lived in the backyard of our new house up until a month ago. It looks freakishly similar to a pile of Dino Doo-Doo.

If you didn’t get the Jurassic Park reference on that last paragraph, that’s ok. I won’t call the Nerd Police, and I will allow you to continue reading my blog. Heathen.

Harvest in Wisconsin means the return of farmer’s markets and a wide array of fresh fruits, veggies, honey, jams, and pies. Below is one of Wisconsin’s most popular byproducts of a successful harvest.

The breakfast of cheeseheads.

Wisconsin is filled with keg hoisting German and Belgian decedents who have brewed the perfect blend of harvested barleys, corns, hops, wild malted milk balls, organic foamy things – producing a golden yellow to chocolatey brown beverage, otherwise known as “beer”. The glass above is from a small craft brewery in New Glarus – the ever popular (and my personal favorite, which of course I know you remember from my last post – ahem), Spotted Cow. Deeee-lish!

Speaking of Belgians and Germans, below are pictures of my grandparents, Cliff and Estelle, and Glenn and Betty. Cliff was Belgian, Estelle was Dutch, and both Glenn and Betty were Germans. (Germans and Belgians and Dutch…oh my!). I never knew Betty – she died when my mom was two – but I have many fond memories of Millie, the woman I loved and called Grandma. But that’s another story.

None of my grandparents were brewers, but gardening (earth) was a big part of their world while raising families during the depression and the 2nd World War. I really only remember Cliff and Estelle’s though, as they continued to garden up into their eighties. You can see a bit of it on the left in their photo.

Estelle and Cliff on the left, Glenn and Betty on the right

My grandfather loved his garden – it was filled with tulips and irises, currants, concord grapes and green beans. Cucumbers too, I think. I spent most of my time running around with my cousins playing with all the stuff we weren’t supposed to like Grandma’s perfumed powder puffs, but I remember Grandpa out there tending and watering, taking breaks in the big swing with Grandma or the neighbor.

When I was young, I didn’t appreciate my grandparents as much as I do now. What a wasted opportunity- I was so young and stupid and ignorant, with such a wealth of knowledge and love right at my fingertips. But somehow, they managed to reach across the space-time continuum (that’s “heaven” to you non-nerds), and plant a little bit of themselves back into my life.

With the advent of social media, my cousins and I have gotten back in touch, sharing stories, photos and anecdotes of kids, pets, spouses, grandchildren – and of course meandering together down memory lane, stopping often to smell Grandpa’s flowers and remark upon Grandma’s fishing skills.

My cousin Michelle, with whom I shared many ill-fated adventures while growing up, happened to marry a gardener, who happened to post photos of his beautiful blooms, which I happened to love, and he happened to respond and the next thing I know, I have a box delivered to me filled with his flower children. And not just his children, but even more special to me – the flower children of my grandparents. He and Michelle had descendants of the irises from Grandpa’s garden, and sent some to me.

Grandma Estelle White and Grandpa Cliff Purple are now residing down by the pond, where I am praying they survive the winter, after which we will hopefully have a lawn and I can transplant them to a more permanent home up by the house. Unfortunately, living down by the pond has it’s hazards. The easement to the pond is owned by the town, and they came thru and weed whacked (raped and pillaged, more like), running right over Grandma and Grandpa.

Grandma Estelle White (left) bore the brunt of the lawn mower attack. Grandpa Cliff Purple (right) faired much better.

I think they are okay, though. I can’t imagine God sending bits of my heart back to me, only to have them killed by a rampant lawn mower. So say a little prayer for them if you think of it. 🙂

My final harvest photo is something that should be “knee high by the 4th of July”, and grown by most farmers in Wisconsin to feed our beautiful spotted cheese makers (aka: cows) and our Packer cheerin’ cheese eaters (aka: Wisconsinites): Nothing like roasted corn at a church picnic, with a hot bowl of booyah and an ice cold soda or brewski. We know how to live in Wisconsin. And I’m not even saying that with my sarcastic voice.

CORN!

Okay, I lied about the final photo. I’m not really done. I have a whole collage of “yellow” to share with you! Did I mention I love yellow? These are a few of my favorite yellow things (besides cheese, corn and beer):

Now I’m done. Mostly. Unless I think of something else. In which case, I would most certainly NOT be done, and this blog would drag on forever. Pretty sure we don’t want THAT.

Until next week,

Sue

PS. I had delicious cake this weekend.

PPS. You could get me to quit typing by putting cake in my hands.

PPSS. Don’t forget to visit Cee’s page to check out the other challengers!

PPSSSPPPSPSSSP: Cake.

I have a headache tonight so I am going to take the easy way out and post about some fun things from the weekend, instead of wowing you with profound insight. As you know, I am a great proponent of having fun and finding joy in the little things. “Easily entertained” are two words often used to describe me.

I was trying to be like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz. I should have bent my legs out. Hindsight is 20/20.

Believe it or not, this lifetime Wisconsinite has never been thru a corn maze, so when my sister asked me to go with her to a corn maze at Groche Organic Farms, I immediately said yes. I am sure many of you have heard of the story of the woman who got lost in the corn maze and called 911 because she couldn’t find her way out. This did not happen to us, mainly because of my superior map reading skills. And because we would have had to try really hard to get lost.

Before we started, we were given a sheet with multiple choice answers on it, that corresponded with questions found in the maze. At each question, they had a hole punch attached with string, that you used to punch out your answer. I only mention this because it explains a couple of the pictures below. Here is a photo journey of our day as Grown Ups of the Corn.

Seriously, you can’t get lost in this maze.

Punching Question 1…Looks more like I’m having a kidney stone attack…

Do you have any idea how much stuff is made out of corn? Neither did we. We got that question wrong.

My sister’s rendition of the hole punch – used with permission by my sister, provided I didn’t mention who she was. Oops.

Even I will admit that this is one cool picture.

Another fun thing from the weekend was a really cool app I found called Comic Book. It lets you take your regular photos and add a ‘comic book’ effect to it, and then add stickers and such. Here is an example – you will recognize the picture of my sister from above. Now come on. That is some pretty cool stuff. It didn’t stop there, either. I played with a few more:

Lucky isn’t saying anything, as our pizza came before I could finish it. But you see the potential here. I love this app so much, it makes me want to go purchase an IPad because I know it will be so much more fun to use on a larger screen. And I want an IPad.

And my last fun thing isn’t really “fun” per se, as much as it is useful. Sometimes useful things are great for us emotionally, simply because they make our life easier or we get joy or satisfaction from using them. This is one of those things. Try not to be disgusted by the raw hamburger in the pan. I know red meat is not on the list of Super Foods (unless you count foods that could kill you Super Quick), but you will have to drag me from it kicking and screaming none the less. The utensil is the Hamburger Chopper. Well, that’s not it’s real name. I don’t remember what it’s real name is – I bought this one and one for my sister (coincidentally, the one I went to the corn maze with), last year before Christmas. I have never seen them since, which is a shame, because it really is the best tool ever for cooking ground beef.