Just Us Family Here

imgur.com is an image sharing site, and lots of people post images to share. Problem is, that I have no idea who to credit or link to, so this time, I’ve combined some of this weeks favorites. You can see the last ones posted here.

(right click and select view image for larger size).

After a long cool spell, we’ve had a few days of hot weather and I’m finally seeing some action in the garden. Have had many hundreds of green tomatoes but nary a ripe one. Today the first 1/2 dozen red ones came in with a lot more close. Was hoping to do tomato canning tomorrow, instead there’s another large batch of peppers ready and tomatoes will be worked "in" around my work schedule.

We’ve had lots of pole beans though. At the vets suggestion, I’ve been adding them to Tes’ food and it seems to be helping. The other day she helped herself to a bean off the vine, wasn’t to thrilled with it raw, but ate it anyway.

And we’ve been eating apples! Weeks early, and there’s a bunch of them about to be ready, though they’re a lot smaller in size this year. As usual, the birds, deer, squirrels, etc. get more than their fair share. The squirrels do weird stuff like put 5-7 in a line on the ground, or carry them to the bird bath and leave them in the water.

Mark made this for me the other day. I thought it look great, but asked "what is it for?". "You just hold it". You see, I have issues with just sitting in front of the TV, have to be knitting or something. OK during the winter, but summer it’s too warm for textiles, and too dim for things I actually have to see for. I get up a lot and do things in commercials that bleed over so I seldom wacth all of anything. It’s just to hold to keep my hands busy. it works out rather nicely too. You can tell I took the picture though…

Rachel is 32 today and probably already over at Wrightsville Beach with dad cooking a birthday dinner (and Barbara cleaning up after him – sometimes she doesn’t get credit for her part). It’s Liz Bryans B-Day too. Wish I could be there, but not enough to move there or get on a plane more often. December is soon enough for that. Allyson and Fox’s birthday’s are the 27th, and of course half the Mann’s had birthday’s this month (notably Steve was 50). I think our family has more than it’s share of August birthdays now. Can we please fill out the other months with the next batch of kiddies?

Talked to Alan and him and Cassy got a new dog. One that the front looks like a herder (kinda like Holly) and the back looks like a Beagle, with a Beagle personality, actually likes other dogs! She’s a little over 2 and called Queenie, which they’re slowly changing to be more Quin like. We’ll have to wait and find out what she loos like and what final version of the name works out. They’ve been inundated with guests since before Joel and Juliet’s wedding, and taking a visitor free break. Figure we’ll go up later September and introduce Tes. Who’s back down to 115.

Briefly talked to Jenelle, who was at Tahoe with Mason, back from the summer with his dad, and starting school today. She sounded great and what a good attitude. She’s planning on hitting the pavement with her resume, enough of ads and calls, she’s going face-to-face, determined to find something out there. Know how hard it is to keep spirits up and committed, it’s tough out there for lots of people who want to work and have skills!

Speaking of school, today was Jackson’s first day at the new Day Care close to home in Hampstead. It makes it easier on Rachel since she’s now working from home a lot, and he’ll be in classes with area kinds that will continue to go to the same public schools. She had him try going over for a few days to visit before the switch, and is being very cautious. She hasn’t learned yet how adaptable kids are, though she’s starting to get it. Took me a while to learn it with her.

Family-of-family cousin Sheila, who was introduced to me by Phyllis Cohen (who’s related through the Grossman side) has got a new blog up. that I’ve helped a little with setting up. Her old ones was, well older, and she’s moved to using the free WordPress. It’s the first time I’ve worked through the public version instead of installing on server and running own copy. Doesn’t have all the options/capabilities, but is easy for anyone to use, great theme choices and a good option for some. You can see Sheila’s at: http://sheilaclapkin345.wordpress.com/. She still has some pages that aren’t live yet, being moved from her old site about her book, Field Notes, which you can read about on the Contact page for now.

As promised here are a few of Mark’s finished necklaces with bronze pendants. They combine materials like glass beads, bronze spacers, fresh water pearls… He’s been doing more casting and has some ones with nice added touches in progress currently like a new bronze claw bead he’s cast several of for spacers.

The stay requested by the Yes proponents of Proposition 8 (those against gay marriage) has been denied, in part because both our Governor and Attorney General requested the court lift the stay. I’m sure we’ll now be subjected to another round of demonization against Judge Walker, but it was unconstitutional to remove rights from any individuals based on race, color, sex, sexual orientation, schools they went to or political party they belong to. This doesn’t change anything religious, any church/temple/mosque/sect/cult can refuse to marry gays or the Irish still, that’s their right, but the state of California can not discriminate.

Now lets move on to the unemployed, the energy crisis, global warming, wars and other real issues.

After the whirlwind of starting a new contract, going to two family weddings and traveling to Maine, we’ve been settling back in. I’m working a contract days (508 Analyst), doing a non-profit volunteer site on evenings and weekends (Asante Africa and some for Cloverdale Arts Alliance), and trying to keep up with the housework, cooking and cleaning. Cleaning is falling a little behind….

Mark is making some pretty incredible jewelry, and mixing the materials and treating the bronze with different techniques. I’ll post some finished pictures in a few days, these are just some of the parts.

We’re both working in our garden and yard, watering, fertilizing, picking, canning, eating, freezing. We have 10 double batches of pesto (made by Mark) stacked in the freezer for winter/spring, jars starting to line the closets (that’d be me), and a gazillion green tomatoes that will all go ripe one night all at the same time.

I’ve talked to Kay and they are both back working and settling in after their fabulous festivities and honeymoon. Kay agrees that Bill’s "spirit water" story is THE one of the wedding. Someone even got to her with it before me, so it’s making the rounds fast. We’ll all enjoy remembering it for the next few decades, one the memorable moments of the wedding, like Harold’s reaction to the part of the ceremony "starting a family together". Classic. Have to thank Bill again for that, we had a great time with them and then this, couldn’t have been better.

Vlad and is family are going south to Camp Pendleton (near San Diego) next week for his son Alex’s graduation from Boot camp. He’s extremely proud, and rightly so. We don’t know where Alex will be going next, though I was caught off guard that he was already old enough!

On a sad note, Blevins mother has passed away and there will be a service held on Tuesday. If you’re on FaceBook you can use the link to go to his wall and read the condolences people are leaving and leave one yourself. We haven’t heard if there’s a charity to donate to instead of sending flowers yet.

As a Californian involved in Human and civil rights issues, I found this Prop 8 Decision Day FAQ very helpful in understanding the who what and where. It has been updated now to include a link to the author’s (Chris Geidner) summary of the Judge Walker’s (a republican appointee) ruling. There are a lot of interesting comments, and one commenter who spells out his interpretation in a difference between a marriage of two individuals and the union of two individuals. A church performs a marriage and has the right to not marry, not honor a divorce, not let some one in, no matter the religion or cult. A union though, is rights granted to two individuals by the government. There are many other thoughtful ideas. The main thing I have taken away from this trial is a deep, moral disgust for NOM, and it’s anti-religious, anti-American hate tactics and beliefs.

The opinion piece Atlantic shocker: Senior editor Clive Crook fabricates another quote to smear Michael Mann, challenging the Atlantic to rein in the fabricated anti-climate articles of Clive Crook, remove them from online and fact check anything he writes in this genre because of his continued smears against Michael Mann,.. and something I’m glad to see. For some reason the media created and supported "Climate Gate" and though proven false after numerous investigations, many have chosen pointedly to continue to ride this dead horse. Time to stop letting liars lies stand, or they become facts in the minds of those who don’t read past the headlines. Disbelievers always claim to not be scientists, but then go on to state why scientists are wrong. Like Palin saying "we" believe in religious freedom, but a Muslim community center and mosque doesn’t count. Wrong, we believe in religious freedom period, and science can’t be made to go away or only apply to what you want.

Could’ve kicked myself since I never bothered to research the topic, fell for what I accuse others of, taking a source on face value without checking alternatives. WHITE HOUSE COVER-UP: How Truman Edited Hollywood’s First Movie About the Atomic Bomb was an eye opener for me, sine I firmly had vision of warning pamphlets showering Hiroshima days in advance. How appropriate with the 65th anniversary of the first use of the atomic bomb against a large city being today. I’m going to be looking for the author’s book Hiroshima in America.

I have previously been a member of and have worked for the California Chamber of Commerce. We had a serious split during the Health Care Reform battle and cemented with anti-climate change sentiments. I’ve wanted nothing further to do with them. Chamber of Commerce Goes After Climate Dissenters In Its Ranks reinforces my decision, but lets me know that some Chambers are fighting this anti-climate bologna, and that someday, maybe my business will join again. I used to enjoy the mixers and gave several talks that left good feelings. Someday, with Chambers like the the alternative coalitions in San Francisco, I will again.

Not an opinion piece, just an accounting of The Know-Nothing Party, officially known as the American Party, a group in the 1850′s that tried to keep immigrants (the Irish Catholic) out of the US, or at least take away any rights they’d receive. Followed up by a Google search and a lot of reading, it turns out they sound just like the anti-immigrationists do today, and their arguments are just as ridiculous and just as unconstitutional. There’s a lesson here, because these people quickly, easily and brutally turned to violence. Skip to today and take a look at this article and then the site Tea Party Nation Asks: Has An Illegal Immigrant Taken Advantage Of You?. History does repeat itself and usually "right" does eventually come through and they’ll all go away for another 150 years if we’re lucky. What I really don’t get is Bobby Jindal and Michelle Malkin using that derogatory term they’ve created, Anchor Babies. Their parents just lucked out and got their visas extended. There but for the grace of God…

The 40 Club: Billionaires pledge at least half of fortunes to charity and their getting more to make the same commitment, and it’s not for the tax break. Many of these are men like Warren Buffet who say "Why should I get tax breaks?, I’m wealthy?". They don’t believe the Bush Tax Cuts should be extended, especially without balancing them off with cutting expenses. Same old republican deficit spending, sigh. You can read the PDF of Full Press Release and realize that community charity, future foundations and men of wealth contributing exist, we just hear about the other type more.

The most important thing to remember when pickling hot peppers is to wear non-latex gloves. The disposable Playtex ones, work perfect. If you are reactive, consider wearing a mask, those this recipe you don’t have to handle the seeds, so eyes and nose won’t really be affected. This recipe makes 4 quart jars.

Ingredients

• 4 quart jars and ringed 2 piece lids cleaned and processed, with process water remaining at the ready. (Yes, you can use your dishwasher or more modern method)
• Enough hot peppers of any kind(s) to fill up 4 quart jars. For me that was 1/2 a sink full…
• 8 Grape Leaves picked in the early-mid summer (late summer ones lose potency). These aren’t necessary, but since I have grape vines they are a nice touch, they make any pickles or peppers crisper, some enzyme.
• 12 cloves of garlic, quick crushed and peeled. (Hold the flat side of a broad knife against the side of clove and press hard. It’ll semi-smash and skin will come off)
• 4 cups white distilled vinegar
• 4 cups distilled water (filtered works fine for me)
• 2 cups wine vinegar. This time I used the champagne rosemary vinegar made 2 years back, good item to use it up on. Any would do, though I’d avoid a heavy red.
• 1 tsp salt

Directions

1. Combine vinegars, water and salt into non-corrosive pan and heat to a good simmer
2. In hot jars, line the bottom sides with 2 grape leaves and add 1/4 of the garlic.
3. With gloves on, poke each hot pepper at least 10 times and pack into jar. I use a hors d’oeuvre sword, it fits my hand and has a small sharp point. Knock the jars around a bit and pack as close as you can. Some recipes call for slitting the side with a thin, sharp knife, I prefer the way they turn out when poked. Personal taste.
4. Once packed with a 1/2 inch head space, clean up anything that touched the peppers and change your gloves. Then ladle in the vinegar mixture. Tap jars, run a thin skewer or other stick down sides to remove air and add vinegar to right below head space.
5. Put on lids tightening the outer ring and then backing it down to loosen. Don’t put jars in a hot water bath with the rings on tight. Process 15 minutes, remove, cool and make sure the inner lid seals. It will be sucked up and tight.

Cherry plumbs (Prunus cerasifera also known as myrobalans) are a small plum that comes in a large range of colors. We have 4 trees, of 3 types, a dark red, a dark purple and a yellow. In the red to purple to black range, the darker the color, the sweeter the plum. Unless it’s a yellow, then it’s the sweetest of them all. Unfortunately our yellow was knocked over when that Cottonwood fell over, and though we’re propping it up, most of the fruit ended up on the ground before it was ripe.

This years producer is the dark purple one, it had hundreds of fruit per branch, so heavy that it looked like a weeping willow with all the limbs bent and dragging the ground. We’ve been munching for a while, and today Mark easily picked without bending or climbing a thousand or so. And they needed to be dealt with right away as their all just perfectly ripe.

Plum Sauce (or Jelly)

Scoring the Plums

Cherry plums are cling stone, so I take the easy way out. I do a double rinse in the sink and directly from the sink "score" the plums. To score them you place a thin bladed knife horizontally across the stem area and slice down to the pit while turning the plum. If they were free stone, at this point they’d open perfectly in half for easy pit removal. Since they’re not, the fruit remains intact, but slit to the pit in half, where the pit would be on one side, not in half where pit would be "cut in half".

I don’t use any additional water, since the plums were taken from water when cut, un-dried. If you want to make it more jelly like, add some water. In a large pot you can add up to 1 cup of additional water. This time I’m going for a strong sauce that can be used in making plum sauces or as a syrup or dessert topping.

Pre-cooking Stage

Over fill your pot with scored plums as high as you can without them falling out and put on the stove on medium low. Once the amount starts lowering stir them. It’ll only take about 1/2 hour to get them to the point where the pits and skins are separated. Remove from heat and cool.

Once the mixture is cool, I pour it into a sieve inside a big pot to press the mixture through. I use a jar as a press since I don’t want to stain my nice wood one. This stage should take about 2 hours. Press for about 2-3 minutes and then let sit for 15 and repeat until it’s a mass of pits and skins you toss. Be sure to scrape into the pan all the good stuff stuck to the underside of the sieve. At his point you add in the amount of sugar you want. I added slightly more than 1/3 cup of sugar per cup of liquid in my pan since I wasn’t making real sweet, 4 cups for my entire batch. You add more for sweeter, but never less than 4 cups of sugar in a batch – Otherwise it just doesn’t seem to set right. For a sweet jelly from not sweet wild plums, you can match the sugar to the liquid, for sweeter plums you can use 1/2 that amount.

Mixture in Sieve Over Large Pan

Heat on medium low stirring occasionally for several hours. Jelly is when a small amount drop onto a cold plate with a little water forms a soft ball and smushes a little (or crinkles) when touched. You want to catch it when it’s just starting to puddle into a loose form for syrup/sauce.

While all this is happening you should be scrubbing and boiling the jars and lids for canning (it’s OK to you dishwasher if you want). Pull out of boiling water, fill with a 1/2inch head space, put sealing lid on and screw lid loosely over. Put jars back into to boiling water for processing and process 10 minutes. Make sure jars seal by checking to see that the inner lid has sucked in tightly.

Easy Rummed Cherry Plums

Adding Sugar, Cinnamon and Plums to Jars

I make these differently then the ones from the larger plum trees (non cherry varieties). They’re real easy and about as little work as you can put into canning.

Wash and pick through plums, don’t use bruised, too ripe, not ripe enough ones. Prepare quart jars. Get ready the measured sugar, cinnamon and plums on whatever surface you’re assembling on.

Pull jar lids out of hot water (they won’t be in a follow-up bath) and line them up. Add 3/4-1 cup of sugar and a half a cinnamon stick to bottom of jars.

jars are stored on side and turned

Poke each plum several times before placing in jar. I used a hors d’oeuvre sword, it fits my hand and has a small sharp point. As you place plums in jars shake and tap the jars occasionally to get the plums to compact as much as possible without smushing. Fill jars to within 3/4 inch and then cover to the 3/4 inch mark with rum. Any rum will do. Some recipes call for dark, I like to use light with the sugar/cinnamon combo. It’s all a matter of taste.

Place prepped lids on tightly, since they aren’t going into a hot water bath. Set jars on side in dark closet. Turn 1/4 every day for 16 days, then set upright and let rest at least 1 month.

And Happy 49th Birthday Mr. President.

In 1935, the first Sunday in August was declared by congress as National Friendship Day. Since then, several other countries have picked it up and it has morphed into International Friendship Day, probably due to the Internet. There actually seems to be some controversy on whether it really started in the US or not, but it is clear that it’s been celebrated for decades.

I’m not sure that this holiday is needed any longer, and won’t eventually fade away. With this blog we celebrate friends and family and happenings in their life. With Facebook we connect and celebrate together even the small successes. On Twitter we follow our political, professional and social "idols" and hear not only the latest news/techniques/activisms, but the milestones in their lives. All on a daily basis.

So what’s the point?

This is finally the last of the wedding festivities, Flip movies posted on YouTube. I’ve also loaded a few additional photos to Facebook and Harold has posted some already from the on-going honeymoon.

I have lots of other movies, photos and a slideshow from the photos, all on DVD for anyone who’s interested. Just drop me a line with your snail mail address.

Please note that by clicking on the large movie you’ll be taken to YouTube where I’m continuing to add more movies that won’t show up here.

Every family gathering has stories that get repeated through the following years. Someone did something, or some event lead to another that someone reacted to. At large gatherings lots of stories surface in the following weeks. I think Bill Jones, bless his heart, supplied me with the story of the occasion, and I welcome you to try and top it by posting your own.

As weddings typically go, we sat in the hall quite a while past when the wedding should’ve started. Even Harold was wondering what was taking the rest of the wedding party so long to arrive. It was pretty hot and Bill leaned over and told me he had to find something to drink and left his seat, like everyone else was doing. Later I heard from Mark that Bill told him he wasn’t sure what that water was, but it was awful. Mark was thirsty anyway and went to look for the pitchers of water near the empty punch bowl and cups, but they were gone.

It was a beautiful ceremony. They ate the symbolic food (Kay’s Granola), drank symbolic drink (Harold’s Spruce Beer) and mingled "spirit waters" from where they grew up into a beautiful wedding vase, each pouring their water into the spout facing them. Pond and ocean water. And Bill recognized the pitchers.

The wedding and reception was held at Library Hall on Bailey’s Island, a few blocks from where we stayed. According to the Harpswell Anchor, it was designed by architects Horace Mann and Perry MacNeille, and is a miniature Mt. Vernon. In 2008 the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. And yes, the entire island is full of Mann family connections.

The food and toast part of the reception was under a tent in the Hall’s backyard. You can see the beautiful wedding vases that Harold made on the tables. Each family got to take one home!

With lots of family, just about everyone helped in the digging, gathering of stones and seaweed, building the fire, and layering in the potatoes, corn, lobster, clams, hot dogs and the timer eggs (and alternated using the Kayak’s). Diana and George’s place was the perfect spot and everyone had a blast. Before the end was called, we gathered to learn family history from representatives of all the branches, watched a symbolic burning of past divorce papers, etc., and ended with an incredible performance using fire poi by Ronnie, Julia’s fiance.

I had a hard time catching it on film with the smoke from the pit, but he did an encore the next night which I’ve posted on Facebook and YouTube. Will eventually post the first one along with the other videos.