Making of a Goodie Box

          Here we are, together again. You and me. I look forward to spending time with you.

          I finished the little blue bird I started last week and I did something I've never done before. I added beads to my glass and copper work. Everyone I've shown it to, including my FaceBook friends and family, seem to really like it. 

          So what did I do? I know you want to know. I started another project using beads again. It's going to be a gift so you'll have to wait to see it.  

          Something I can show you is another project I finished this week.

          "And what might that be?" you ask.

          I baked a ton of goodies and divided them between three of my best girls. That beautiful and feisty redheaded neighbor of mine, my Miss Rosie; my beautiful sister in Minnesota; and my new-found old friend Trish in West Virginia.

          Here's what happened.

          Lemon Meltaways came up on my FaceBook feed. Miss Rosie loves lemon so I thought I'd make them for her. Sometime. Maybe we'd play cards some afternoon and I'd make them then.

          Time passes. A week, two weeks.

          Vermont Maple Cookies came up on my FaceBook feed! They looked so pretty and so yummy. I read the recipe, they sounded easy, and I love real maple syrup.

          I could make them for when we play cards too, I thought. With no real plans for an afternoon of cards with the neighbors, I wouldn't be making them anytime soon. My thoughts turned to Momma. Sigh. She'd have been happy to try both of these recipes.

          I miss my mama. It was a joy to make a goodie box for her, to find new recipes for her to try, and I really miss that. Now I didn't have any reason to make these cookies.

          That rattled around in my head for a couple of days until I came up with a good enough excuse to make them. Trish had a birthday coming up, she lives in a tiny house and has no oven, what more did I need!

          I made Vermont Maple Cookies...

          "You didn't make those for me," Miss Rosie says with a laugh. "You know I don't care for maple-flavored anything."

          I know, I know. And man-oh-man was I surprised when I showed up at the Kipp door with a half-dozen of them in a bag.

          "They're maple," I said apologetically as I handed them to Miss Rosie.

          She took the bag, opened it, and smelled them. Then reached in and took one out.

          "You're going to try them anyway?" I was baffled.

          "Sure." She took a bite; it crunched, and she chewed thoughtfully. "Not bad," she declared.

          "That one's a little over-done."

          "It's a coffee-dunker."

          "Some of the others are softer. There was a learning curve," I explained.

          Lamar took a softer, less brown one from the bag and traded Miss Rosie. She took a bite. "Not bad at all. They're not too mapley."

          I talk to my sister Phyllis every morning. I do it because I love her. Every morning I send her an email and tell her what's going on. "I'm baking for a goodie box for my friend Trish," I told her in my morning love.

          "I'm sure Trish will appreciate and enjoy your baking. I know I would!" she told me and she always sends her love back.

          I decided right then and there to make her a box too! "Making two goodie boxes isn't any harder than making one! Anything special I can make for you?"

          "I love everything you bake!"

          And that's how I came to be baking for my three best girls.

          My course set, I sent Trish a note. "Anything special I can bake for you?"

          "I always loved your homemade bread."

          "I'm not sure it'll be good after spending three days in a box," I told her. Then it occurred to me that I hadn't baked for Trish in years and many of the new recipes I love, she's never had. White bread might not be good but quick bread would make the trip just fine. So next, I made Cinnamon Quick Bread and Lemon Meltaways.

          The Lemon Meltaway recipe didn't make many but I divvied up what there was, took some to the Kipps, ate a couple, and froze the rest.

          Homemade bread homemade bread homemade bread was running around in my head chasing Goodie Box. Why not, I decided. The weather is cool and if it's a little stale when it gets to her, she can always turn it into toast. It makes the best toast!

          "This morning I've got more baking to do. Homemade bread and maybe some Dream Bars. I can't decide if I want to make some Chocolate Peanut Butter No Bakes or maybe a Pumpkin Roll. My freezer is getting fuller and fuller with yummy treats!" I told Phyllis in her morning love. "I'm eating Cinnamon Bread for breakfast. It was a recipe that Momma liked. She liked the sweet bread best and she especially liked Miss Rosie's banana bread."

          And now Miss Rosie's banana bread banana bread banana bread started chasing Goodie Box around in my head. I wonder if she'd make me some. I was reasonably sure she would but it would be the first time either one of us has invoked the if-you-ever-want-something-I'll-make-it-for-you clause in our friend contract.

          I asked.

          She granted.

          And now I'd have Miss Rosie's Banana Bread to add to my goodie box.

          I made Dream Bars and I made homemade bread.

          And I had a problem.

          "What's that?" you wonder.

          One of my breads got a little rambunctious while he was rising on the counter and started overflowing his pan. I got the oven on and as soon as it preheated, I popped the bread in. Long before it was done, I could smell it. I love the smell of homemade bread as it fills the house with its luscious, mouth-watering aroma. But soon the smell turned as my bread started to burn. I jumped out of my chair and peeked in the oven. The top looked okay but I was worried it was burning on the bottom — and it still had 20 minutes to go!

          Maybe my oven's too hot, I thought, even though this is the same oven, same temperature, and for the same amount of time I've used dozens of times before and never had any problem with. Still, better to err on the side of caution and I turned the temp down a little.

          When the hour was up, when my timer went off, I took the bread out of the oven and was really confused. It was very light in color. Where did the burning smell come from? But I don't dwell. I wrapped a towel around a hot loaf and took it down to the Kipps. There's nothing better than a slice of hot homemade bread slathered with butter and I didn't want Rosie to miss out.

           After a bit, I sliced into a warm loaf — and discovered it wasn't quite done. It wasn't much of a doughy spot and it didn't stop me from eating the piece I'd sliced off. I stood there, eating my buttered bread, contemplating what to do. And a memory came into my head.

          "How was that Apple Cake I sent you?" I asked Momma on the phone.

          "It was a little soggy," she answered.

          "Oh no. I'm so sorry."

          "That's all right. I just popped it in the oven and baked it a little more. Then it was fine."

          I wondered, could I put my bread back in and bake it more?

          I called Miss Rosie. "I'm sorry. I didn't know the bread wasn't done."

          "Ours is done," she told me. "It's just fine."

          "Mine's just a little doughy in the center. Do you think I can put it back in and bake it some more?" I asked.

          "I don't know," was her honest answer.

          And my honesty came out without a single thought as to how it might sound. "Miss Rosie! I'm disappointed in you! I don't have a mother to turn to anymore so I was kinda counting on you for the answer!"

          "I'm sorry," she said with a little laugh. That's a good thing since I was mostly teasing anyway. "But I can't tell you something I know nothing about."

          I Googled it. Get this. You can bake bread more as long as it's 90% done. Even if it's cooled down before you realize it isn't done. Just put it back in the oven for 10 to 20 minutes. The website said it wouldn't work as well with bread that was only slightly cooked but go ahead and try it anyway since you don't have anything to lose. Normally I check several websites to make sure I have the best information but since this was the answer I wanted, I looked no further.

          I turned the oven on and as it was preheating, I could smell bread burning! What in the world? I wondered. I didn't even have the bread in yet and there was smoke pouring from the oven vent. I pulled the door open and found a big gob of bread burning on the lower heating element. That troublemaker! I thought. The one that was overflowing his pan on the counter pooped out a blob in the oven and I didn't know it. It all made sense to me now. All of my trouble with smelling the bread burning was because of that one guy — and it's always the guys that give you trouble, don'cha know.

          I finished off the bread and it was fine. 

          So I had maple cookies, lemon cookies, Dream Bars, cinnamon and banana breads, homemade white bread, 3 ingredient peanut butter cookies and no-bake cookies for my goodie boxes. I thought I should get a box out and see how everything fit before I decided if I needed to make anything else.

          Yeah.

          Nope.

          I didn't need to make anything else. In fact, there wasn't room for the white bread. Oh well. I taped the boxes shut, addressed, and sent them.

          "The Dream Bars are the dreamiest and the meltaways are the meltiest!" Phyllis told me after she got her box. That made me smile. Then she confessed she didn't much like maple. So much for loving 'everything you bake!'

          We had snow this week! They were calling for a lot of snow but the storm passed south of us and we got three, maybe four inches out of it.

          This is our little dirt road.

          And our little creek.

         

          The vineyard.      

   

          A train car on a side rail.

          A sunset.

           This flew over our house. A Chinook?

          I haven't shown you any train graffiti lately.

          It looks like they're starting work on the multi-million dollar LNG station just outside of Wyalusing.

          "Peg, what's LNG?" you ask.

          It's liquefied natural gas. They're building a transfer station here and gas will be trucked out or sent out by train. As you may expect, with any project of this size, there's tons of controversy surrounding it.

  

          There certainly is a lot of information on the internet these days and not all of it's reliable.

           On my feed on Saturday morning was a story about some kids walking past a cornfield and being attacked by corn squid.

          Are you kidding me, I thought when I saw it. This has got to be some kind of a joke.

          And it is but it was laid out like a legit news article and people who don't know any better would think it's real. In fact, in one piece I read, the author heard two boys talking about it in the grocery store who thought it was real because they saw it on a social media site.

          Some people will believe anything they read.

          Take this guy right here.

          "Peg!" Mike yelled.

          "What!" I yelled back.

          "Where are your clothespins?"

          "In the laundry room. Why?"

          "Would you get me a couple?"

          I got up from my desk and got them. "What's going on?"

          "It says that if you put clothespins on your ears that it will stop the ringing."

          "Oh, I've got to get my camera!" I made a dash for it while he fiddled around putting them on.

          "What have I got to lose?" he asked.

          "Not a thing." I waited a few minutes. "Is it working?"

          "No," Mike answered. "And it hurts."

          Mike has terrible, terrible tinnitus. There are several things that can cause it and we did talk to his doctor about it. She suggested physical therapy. Whatever. I'm not a doctor and she said it sometimes helps.

          "You want to try?" I asked Mike after we left the doctor's office that day.

          "No."

          So I guess, since the clothespins didn't work either, he's going to have to live with it.

          We woke to a layer of ice coating the trees Friday morning. It didn't last long once the sun was out of bed for a while.

          That day I didn't have any Starlings at my feeders and thought it was weird. But no Starlings means there was room for other birds.

          Look at the size of this Downy Woodpecker! He's almost as big as my suet cage. But as soon as the thought was thought, I knew it wasn't a Downy, it must be a Hairy Woodpecker. Miss Rosie told me about them. "They look just like the Downys only bigger."

          So here you have a Hairy and Downy side-by-side so you can see the difference in size. These are both males because they have red hats on, the females don't sport them.

          You know something? My mother told me that her voice sounds like a man's over the phone and to people who don't know her. I never thought that but I've heard her voice my whole life. She recounted this story for me as an example.

          "I answered the phone one day and the caller asked for the woman of the house. 'I'm the woman of the house,' I told him. He insisted that he wanted to talk to a woman and I told him that was me." Momma laughed at the memory. "He cussed me out. 'Fagot,' and he hung up on me."

          I couldn't understand how they thought my mama sounded like a man.

          Then I heard this lady speak. I was listening to Focus on the Family and their guest speaker that day was Dr. Kathy Koch (pronounced cook) and all I could hear was a man's voice. Is that how people heard Momma? I wondered. I had to go and find a picture of her.

          I thought of Momma a lot of times this week, didn't I.

          Here's another sunset picture for you.

          Let's call this one done!