E ~ Email

     Sometime in 2020 I became aware that some emails weren't reaching me, when someone asked if I minded getting some info to them that they had asked for in an email they had sent.
    I checked my email. Nothing. I check the junk folder, the stuff I had deleted, and the blocked address list and still nothing. I asked Rosie Mae and Sharon to send me an email. Those didn't show up either.
    I went trouble shooting, and discovered that a lot of people using outlook/msn/live for their email were no longer receiving anything sent to them via gmail accounts. Super frustrating!
    I wondered how many people were waiting for a reply from me, and I had never received what they had sent. On gmail users end, they never get notified that their email was not delivered.
    If you're one of them. I'm so sorry! 
    Here is my new email address you can use. kinsingermaryann(at)gmail(dot)com

D ~ Daffodil Selfie

     Coming home from running some errands I stopped by one of our flowerbeds to take a picture of the happy little daffodils. The skies were so blue and the cows were laying in the field contently chewing their cud, so I decided to try to capture it all in the picture.
    As I lowered my phone into the flowers, the leaves of one of the daffodils touched the screen and switched it to selfie mode just as I took the picture.
    It amused me, which is why I'm sharing it today, even though selfies or appearing anywhere in front of a camera is way out of my comfort zone.
    Deep breaths ... here we go ... my very first daffodil selfie.

C ~ Chickens

     Feeding the chickens and gathering eggs used to be one of my favorite things to do as a child.
    Mom would save stale bread and choice food scraps for us to feed them, but my favorite of all was feeding them wild grapes from the vines that twisted their way up the trees behind the barn. They were much too tangy for us to eat, but the chickens viewed them as the best treat.                                
    I would hold the corners of my apron while John and David would scramble up the tree to retrieve those tiny grapes and drop them down to me. Once we had what we deemed as a sufficient amount we'd run to the chicken pen and stand outside the fence. One by one we would throw the grapes in and watch the chickens race to get to it.
    Mom didn't want us to feed them too many in one day, so after we fed them everything we had harvested we'd find something else to do and leave the chickens to their regular food.
    I often wondered why we couldn't feed them as much as we wanted to, but then one year the neighbors cows got into a lot of ramps (spring onions/garlic) and it made their milk taste garlicky. They couldn't sell garlic flavored milk and asked us if we want it. We took a lot of it. Mom saved the cream and we fed the rest to our pigs and our calf.
    Once the butter was made we tried eating it, but the over powering garlic flavor proved to be too much. John and I were sent to feed it to the pigs, but we detoured and fed it to the chickens instead. They seemed super excited and pecked away at it until they had it cleaned up.
    We didn't tell Mom we opted to feed the chickens instead of the pigs, but then several days later the breakfast eggs tasted oddly of garlic. Mom was mystified until we told her we had fed the chickens all that garlicky butter.
    After that I understood why Mom didn't want us to feed an abundance of those tangy wild grapes to the chickens at one time.

B ~ Borrowing

    We used to live in walking distance to my grandparents and several aunts and uncles. It wasn't unusual for one of them to appear at our door to see if they could borrow something. A cup of sugar, a special kind of saw, the lawn mower when theirs broke down, anything they happened to need, and the most popular by far ... books.
    We were always happy to help them out if we could. They were always willing to return the favor.
    We had the same type of borrowing relationship with other nearby Amish families.
    Borrowing from neighbors is a thing of the past now for us. Some days I miss that.

    Days like today, when I had a sewing order I needed to complete to get in the mail, and my old faithful treadle sewing machine would not cooperate at all. 
    If it would have been twenty years ago I would have gathered up all my things and gone to my parents house and used my Mom's sewing machine. 
    I briefly thought of going to our closet Amish neighbors to see if I can use her machine and then laughed at that errant thought. I can only imagine how horrified she would have been to have someone they have to shun ask for something like that. Technically they're supposed to give us what ever we want or need, and never accept anything from us in return. But I wasn't about to put her into such an uncomfortable position. 

    Every once in a while I miss the simplicity and sense of community we used to have while we were Amish. Borrowing and lending is one of those things I do miss.

A ~ Add Water

     One of the first things I learned to do after LV and I got married was how to make coffee. 
     Having grown up in a family that didn't drink coffee I never had the opportunity to learn how before we were married.
    LV showed me how he liked his coffee and it became part of our daily breakfast. I found some degree of satisfaction being able to make it just how he liked it. Black and strong, and percolated the right amount of time to bring out all the flavor he enjoyed.
    Several months later we received our first overnight guests. I made the coffee as usual and the visiting lady requested to have hers black while others wanted cream and sugar for theirs.
    She took one sip and exclaimed the coffee is much too strong and asked if I can make a new pot for her. 
    I suggested she add some water to hers, to which she vehemently declared, "You DON'T add water to coffee!"
    I got up from the table to make a new and much weaker pot for her. Somehow I didn't have the courage to ask her what the main ingredient is in a cup of coffee.
    I don't remember much else of that visit, but I regularly think of her when I make coffee as I pour water into the pot.