We Are Sowing

We are sowing, daily sowing

Countless seeds of good and ill ...

Seeds that lie unchanged, unquickened,

Lifeless on the teeming mold;

Seeds that live and grow and flourish

When the sower's hand is cold.

Selected passages of the poem "Pure Diamonds," anonymous. Words were set to music for the hymn "We Are Sowing," number 216 in the LDS hymnbook.

When my 8-year-old daughter giggled with confusion that we were planting bulbs in November -- a time, she pointed out, that's really the harvest -- I was again glad that gardening provides a unique classroom for so many life lessons. You reap what you sow. We won't have tulips in spring unless we plant bulbs now, I explained. Though you may not see the outcome for many years, dear girl, the choices you make now will affect the rest of your life.

This Thanksgiving I'm grateful for new insight into the law of the harvest. I'm thankful to know that If I keep sowing, even when my hand is cold or my heart troubled, my Maker understands and makes up for my deficits.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Grandma Morgan's rolls

One of my prized possessions is an index card smudged with butter and ink.

Years ago, I don't remember when, I asked Jeff's Grandma Morgan to write down her recipe for rolls. She looked a little surprised. Surely she knew how legendary her rolls were, how no holiday dinner was complete without them. Surely she basked in the flurry of arms reaching to grab a hot one when she paraded around her big dining table with the latest pan fresh from the oven. I don't think anyone bothered with a roll basket.

I never saw her mix the dough or shape the cloverleaf balls. When we came to dinner, even well before the appointed time, she'd already done most of the work.

I wish I'd thought to ask for a private lesson before arthritis robbed pliable fingers, and before the baker was gone.

Grandma Morgan died last month. She was an elegant, accomplished woman who made me want to stand a little taller. She loved babies and cultivated incredible gardens. I love that she seemed equally at home playing in the dirt and -- at least once upon a time -- in flour.

Yes she was surprised when I asked for her recipe but she pulled it from the top of her head and wrote it down quickly. The arrows, cross-outs and spartan directions of this recipe card amuse me. I treasure it.

We love you, Grandma!

with 1-day-old Elise, 2001

Rolls 

(with my notes in italics)

2/3 cup shortening (part margarine) --  (I asked her to clarify this; she said 1/2 cup margarine and a rounded Tablespoon of shortening. Go figure!)

2 cups scalded milk

1/2 cup sugar

1 Tablespoon salt

3 yeast cakes (or pkgs.)  in 2/3 cup warm water and 2 teaspoons sugar

4 eggs beaten, add to cooled milk

8 cups flour, approx.

Raise one hour. Roll Mix. Roll out. Raise again, 1 hour or plus. Bake 375 for 8-10 minutes.

More!

1. Scald milk. Meanwhile, mix yeast packages (equivalent of 2 Tablespoons plus 3/4 teaspoons) in 2/3 cup warm water and 2 teaspoons sugar.

2. Remove milk from heat. Add 1/2 cup margarine or butter with rounded Tablespoon of shortening to warm milk.

3. Beat 4 eggs.

4. Mix yeast, cooled milk, eggs, 1/2 cup sugar and 1 Tablespoon salt. 

5. Gradually mix in  8-9 cups of flour.

6. Let rise one hour. Stir down dough, make into desired shape and place in greased pans. Let rise another hour.

7. Bake at 375 for 8 to 10 minutes.

It gets better

The perspective of details:

1. I gave Samuel ice cream. La-di-dah. Ho-hum.

2. It was a potty treat.

3. Not as a reward for producing -- a bribe just to get him to sit there!

4. It was 5 p.m., almost dinner time. I didn't care. This kid hadn't produced since 10 a.m., and was a screaming, naked time-bomb running through the house. Something had to be done. Enter the bit of ice cream Jeff brought home for our in-house date. (He'd eaten his share alone.)

5. THE ICE CREAM WAS BEN AND JERRY'S!!! THAT'S PREMIUM STUFF, PEOPLE!!!

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

And here we see a scene I vividly recall from my own childhood when I, like Elise, was enlisted to read to a younger brother in training.

I'm thinking about installing a loudspeaker in the bathroom so James can read to Samuel, and I can listen to James from the kitchen while I work, thus fulfilling James' oral reading homework.

P.S. On Elise's watch, Samuel ran off from the EMPTY potty and, er, "decorated" the fireplace.