Things I Swear By

     My friend once told me that her grandmother considered Vaseline (she pronounced it "Basaleen") a cure all for everything.  If you got scratched, put some "Basaleen" on it.  Chapped lips, "Basaleen."  From what I heard, she probably smeared Vaseline on her forehead for a headache.  I think Vaseline is good stuff.  I go through tubs of it.  Of course, it's good for moisturizing dry skin and getting a tight ring over a swollen knuckle.  I've used Vaseline to clean dirt off of shoes and give them a quick shoe shine.  I also coated my forehead, ears, and neckline with Vaseline when giving myself a home perm during the 1980's and '90's big hair days.  Check out some other alternative uses for Vaseline -
http://www.wackyuses.com/vaseline.html
     There are other things that I swear by.  They are not as cool as Oprah's favorite things, but they make more sense for regular gals like us.  I love Shop Rite's store brand merchandise.  Almost all of it is just as good as a name brand.  The plain and vanilla yogurt in the large 32 ounce container is just as good as Dannon.  Shop Rite's canned vegetables are as good as Del Monte.  I stock up for the whole year during the Can Can Sale.  Shop Rite facial tissues are cheap compared to other brands even if the boxes aren't as pretty.  You might want Puffs with aloe when you have a snotty nosed cold, but for the occasional blow and throw, Shop Rite brand is just fine.
     Remember Herb Denenberg, the consumer advocate?  He reported, in one of his segments about cosmetics, that we should buy the cheapest shampoo available since the main ingredient of all shampoo is ammonium lauryl sulfate, a common detergent.  Herb advised spending a little extra money on a good conditioner.  I always buy Suave and White Rain on sale and usually pay about 79 cents for a bottle.
     The latest wonderful thing that I have discovered is Valspar paint with the primer in it.  The coverage is terrific.  If you apply it with those itty-bitty rollers that the HGTV people use, there is rarely a lap mark.
     These are some of the things I swear by.  Maybe I'll write about the things I swear at in another blog entry.
         

Early Detection

     Do you ever watch "The Big C," a Showtime series starring Laura Linney?  The show is about how a woman chooses to deal with her cancer diagnosis.  Since this is television, cancer is a whole lot funnier on Showtime than it is in real life.
     Watching the show got me wondering - just how likely is one to develop cancer?  The overall likelihood of a man getting any type of cancer in his lifetime is 45%.  For women, it's 38%.

http://nj.gov/health/ces/documents/lifetime_risk.pdf

     Since my mother had skin cancer, breast cancer and uterine cancer, I'm a bit of a hypochondriac.  Every ache, pain, swollen spot, or red mark has me self diagnosing at the Mayo Clinic's web site.  Since only 5% to 10% of cancers are inherited, all of this worry is wasted effort.  My mother always said that all the ailments that hurt or otherwise make you feel miserable were not to be worried about.  In her opinion, the serious illnesses would sneak up on you quietly.  
     Check out Dr.Oz's video which addresses the most ignored cancer symptoms.  He and Mom seem to agree.

http://health.yahoo.net/videos/droz/most-ignored-cancer-symptoms

Don't obsess about your health.  Be aware of what your body might be telling you and see the doctor when a symptom starts hanging around for a while.  Otherwise, don't worry, be happy!  And ladies, practice breast self examination and get your mammogram.
   
 

Cheese and Peepperoni Dreams

     It's time for a poem.  This one is inspired by my elevated cholesterol which I try to control with a low fat diet.

I wish I had a roll with butter

Beside a quiche Lorraine,

But to avoid artery clutter

I’ll stick with just the grain.

I wish I had a chocolate shake

So thick the straw would stand,

Sometimes it seems like Eden’s snake

Will get the upper hand.

So I grill and bake and broil

When what I really want is fried,

To gain some years atop the soil

I’ll take low fat in stride.

And when those urges come for fat

When I crave cholesterol,

I’ll substitute this for that

And continue this long, long haul.

     Since I love whole grains and vegetables, it hasn't been that difficult.  Desserts are what I miss the most.  I doodled around with two of my favorite recipes and came up with a yummy, cholesterol free result.

No Crust Pumpkin Pie

1/3 cup egg white

1 - 15 oz. can solid pack pumpkin

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp. ground ginger

1/4 tsp. ground cloves

1 - 12 oz. can undiluted evaporated skim milk

Combine ingredients in a large bowl and mix thoroughly.  Place custard cups or ramekins in a pan that has been filled with 2-3 inches of water.  Pour the pumpkin mixture into the ramekins.  Bake for 15 minutes in an oven that has been preheated to 425 degrees.  After 15 minutes, reduce temperature to 350 degrees.  Bake an additional 40-50 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean.

Carrot Cake Reworked as Carrot Muffins

(Sorry, cholesterol free cream cheese frosting is impossible)

2 cups flour

2 cups sugar

2 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. baking powder

2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 cup canola oil

1 cup unsweetened apple sauce

1/3 cup egg whites

4 cups grated carrots

1/3 cup raisins

1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

Mix ingredients in a large bowl until smooth.  Pour into a muffin pan that has been sprayed with Pam.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes.  Baking could take longer, so check by inserting a knife near the center.  They are done when the knife comes out clean.

     I just had a delicious dessert at a friend's house.  I suppose you could call it No Crust Apple Pie.

Apple Tapioca Dessert

2 cups apple juice

1/3 cup tapioca

1/2 cup sugar (or 1/4 cup white and 1/4 cup brown)

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

4 small, tart apples, peeled and sliced

Spray large baking dish with Pam and set aside.  Mix water, tapioca, sugar, and salt in a pot.  Bring to a boil and cook according to the directions on the tapioca package.  When the tapioca is cooked, mix in the sliced apples.  Pour apple tapioca mixture into the baking pan.  Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.

     Granted, none of these are low-cal foods, but they will fill the void that you used to fill up with bacon, cheese omelettes, and ice cream.   

Pollen

      The oak trees are pollinating.  I hate this time of year.  On a windy day, it rains strands of pollen.  The gutters and downspouts are jammed with it.  It's wrapped around the car's windshield wipers.  It's all over the yard.  The dog comes in with the stuff tangled in her curly, poodle hair.  If I don't pick it out of her fur, it is spread throughout the house.  I'll spend the next month climbing up to clear the gutters before each rain storm and raking the patio after a windy day - all the while wearing a mask.

      

     Mike's eyes are itchy and red.  It's my job to dose him with eye drops because (in his words) he has a problem administering eye drops to himself.  The process of getting drops into Mike's eyes resembles a scene from "A Clockwork Orange."
     It should all be over by June.  We'll enjoy the shade of the stately oak trees this summer.  This fall the trees will drop leaves and acorns all over the place.  The squirrels will bury all the acorns that I fail to rake out of the yard.   The whole pollen cycle will repeat next spring.  I'll also be digging up all the baby oaks that have sprouted from the squirrel's planting efforts.  Is anybody besides me getting too old for this?      

Buzzzzzz

     Besides chickens, my father kept honey bees.  Beekeeping is known as apiculture.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beekeeping  The place where hives are kept is called an apiary.  In my father's case, the apiary was at the far back of our lot.  There were two gray boxes that sat up off the ground.  Bees flew in and out all day long.
     I was afraid of bees and hated having to pass the hives.  "Leave them alone and they will leave you alone," was what I heard every time I whined about the bees being along the path to my swing set.  This off the cuff advice was not exactly true.  Though I looked straight ahead and walked calmly past the bees, I still managed to get stung more times than I can count.  Once a bee got tangled up in my hair.   My mother had to examine my scalp to find the stinger.  I twisted and carried on while she had me head in a headlock.  Honey bees deposit a stinger when they bite.  The stinger has to be removed quickly to reduce the amount of venom delivered to the victim.  Scraping with a fingernail is the most handy way to remove a stinger.  Tweezers can also be used.   Another time a bee flew into my open mouth.  I spit it out and took off running for the house.  The bee didn't sting me.  It felt fuzzy on my tongue, though.  On the occasions that I was stung, I would hear, "Well, the bee will die now.  You have your revenge."  Honey bees sting as a last resort when they feel very threatened because losing the stinger basically disembowels them.  Small comfort when you are seven years old and your scalp is throbbing.

Bee hives

 
     The bees did provide a learning experience that, I'm betting, none of the other kids in school had.  I learned about the composition of bee society - workers, drones, and the queen.  The workers were all female (sound familiar?).  They come from fertilized eggs laid by the queen.  Males or drones came from unfertilized eggs.  There is one queen per hive, and she is the only bee capable of reproducing.  Worker bees, who feed all the bee larvae, feed large amounts of a substance called royal jelly to that special little larva that becomes the queen.  The queen flies high into the air, mates during this one time flight with several males (who drop dead afterwards), and returns to the hive for a lifetime of egg laying.  She can live 3-5 years and is replaced when she dies or fails to be productive.  Worker bees live only six weeks during the summer, but can live 4-9 months through the winter.  Drones are on stand-by for mating during the summer, but get pushed out of the hive in the fall.  Why feed a useless male all winter when you can make a new one in the spring?  http://www.backyardbeekeepers.com/facts.html

The smallest bee on the left is a worker.  The middle bee is a drone.  The largest bee on the right is a queen.

     Whenever my father worked with the bees, he wore his bee suit.  It was a khaki jumpsuit with a hat and veil.  Some beekeepers wear gloves, but my father usually used his bare hands.  The main thing to do was to keep bees off one's face since the face tends to swell when stung.  Beekeepers also use a device called a smoker when working in the hive.  The smoke, produced by various types of smoldering material, calms the bees.  Once a hive was turned over by some mischievous neighborhood kids.  My father set the box back in place.  He found the bees in a huge, swarming mass in a nearby tree.  He grabbed the queen and placed her inside the hive.  All the bees followed her back home.  Problem solved. Beekeepers sometimes move hives.  Let's say you want apple blossom honey.  The thing to do is to move the hives to an apple orchard when the trees are in flower.  The guy who owns the apple orchard gets his trees pollinated, and the guy who owns the bees gets honey from a particular source.  If you saw the Peter Fonda Movie called "Ulee's Gold" you learned about tupelo honey, a highly prized honey from the tupelo tree.  http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-tupelo-honey.htm 
I remember that my father moved some hives once.  The transfer was done at night, when the bees were asleep.

Bee Smoker

        

Bee Suit

     Dad just liked having bees.  I only remember one time that he took honey from the hives.  The process involved removing waxy, wooden frames from the hives and spinning them to extract the honey.  http://basicbeekeeping.blogspot.com/2008/05/extracting-your-honey.html  Our honey was very dark, not the pale golden stuff that comes from the supermarket.  My mother explained that the bees made our honey from many different flowers, and that produced dark honey.  I can't vouch for this since she was the one who said bees will ignore you if you ignore them!
     Another thing that my mother told me was that beekeepers didn't get cancer.  Her information came from the Anton Cancer Research Center in Germany.  In 1952, they published a report saying that there were no people with the occupation of beekeeping among the people with cancer that they studied.  The assumption was that bee stings stimulated the immune system and warded off cancer.  These days people are swearing by bee sting therapy for all sorts of ailments from arthritis, to Herpes Zoster, to Multiple Sclerosis.  The research, however, doesn't back up the benefits of being stung.
     There are a lot of people traveling around with epinephrine pens ready to inject themselves should they be stung by a bee.  Just how  common is a full blown case of bee sting anaphylactic shock?  Ten to fifteen percent of us will experience large areas of swelling that can last for up to a week after a bee sting.  Only .5% of children and 3% of adults experience full blown anaphylaxis after a sting.  I once met a family who had incurred a $3,000 emergency room bill when they took their child in for a bee sting.  After waiting 3 hours, they were told they had no reason to be there and sent home.  The lesson to be learned is that if you are not gasping for breath 20 minutes after a bee sting, you'll be fine.
     You won't find many back yard bee hives these days, but you might find them on top of city hall in some big metropolis.  City beekeeping is the latest trend.  With less green space, there are less pesticides used in cities.  This is a healthier environment for bees.  http://www.urbanfarmonline.com/urban-livestock/bee-keeping/unexpected-beehives.aspx
     So bees are a good thing,  bee stings might be a good thing, and honey is delicious.            

Slither

     Mardi decided to have some sport the other day with a garter snake.  As she scampered and play bowed, the snake plastered itself against the house's foundation and stayed very still.  Mike and I took on the job of relocating the snake while Mardi cooled her heels inside the house.  The plan was to pick up the reptile with a leaf rake and deposit it into the wheel barrow, then we would wheel it to a wooded area and release it.  Who knew that the wriggly thing could practically stand on its tail end and jump?  It made various attempts to spring out of the wheel barrow while we tried to push it back with the rake.  Finally, it bested us, flew over the side of its prison, landed on the ground, and wrapped itself around the front wheel of the barrow.  With a little prodding, it let go and went slithering around the fenced in part of the yard.  Each time it tried to make an escape, it got caught in our dog proof mesh.  Mike finally wrangled it through the gate and into the woods.
     This adventure inspired us to do some snake research.  My mother used to warn me about avoiding snakes that could be lurking in the yard.  She talked about deadly "water moccasins" and "sand vipers."  Back then I took her word for it.  Now I realize she was a bit misinformed.  Sand vipers are found in Europe, the Balkans, and the Middle East - we're safe from their venomous bites here in Hainesport.  By water moccasin, she might have been referring to the cottonmouth snake, but they don't live in New Jersey either.  We found a wonderful website that details New Jersey's belly crawling inhabitants.

http://www.nj.gov/dep/fgw/ensp/fieldguide_herps.htm

In Hainesport, you're likely to find Garter Snakes in the back yard.  They are active from April to September.  They range in length from 18"-51".  The Eastern Kingsnake lives in Burlington County.  He's a big boy growing up to 80" in length.  You might also encounter a Northern Black Racer.  It's best to steer clear of this one because because it will defend itself if cornered.  Bites aren't poisonous, but they really hurt.  I once disturbed a Hognose Snake while racking leaves.  This guy stood up and fanned out his head and neck like a cobra.  He put on a striking and hissing display that scared the crap out of me.  Something this aggressive must be dangerous, right?  I decided that I had to kill the Hognose.  I grabbed a shovel and intended to bring it down on the snake, severing him in two.  I thought it would be pretty much the same as squashing a caterpillar or slapping a mosquito.  I stood there with raised shovel, but I couldn't commit murder.  Our conversation went something like this:

Hiss, hiss, strike.
"Prepare to die, sucker."
Hiss, strike.
"I'm gonna bring this shovel down and kill you."
Hissssssssss.
"Okay, I'm ready now.  I'm gonna kill you now."  Shovel waivers.  "Alright.  I can do it now.  You're toast."

After a half dozen false starts, I slammed the shovel down and killed the tiny aggressor.  Later, when I found out it was all a show, a big display of snake bravado, I was consumed with guilt for killing the harmless, little thing.

Eastern Hognose

Garter Snake

  

Eastern Kingsnake

Northern Black Racer

There are two poisonous snakes in New Jersey.  The Northern Copperhead lives in Sussex, Warren, Passaic, and Hunterdon Counties.  These snakes are hardly ever seen because they are rare and reclusive.  They are on the endangered species list.  Though their bites are poisonous, they are hardly ever fatal.

Northern Copperhead

New Jersey's other venomous snake is the Timber Rattlesnake.  A bite from one of these guys will kill you if you are not treated in time.  These snakes are also endangered.  You might remember a big flap that occurred in the Sancutuary housing development in Evesham Township back in 1998.  The home building disturbed the nesting area of the snakes.  Things were eventually resolved, more in the builder's favor than the snakes' favor.  In 2011 a Good Samaritan in Little Egg Harbor Township stopped his car and attempted to move a Timber Rattlesnake from the road.  He was bitten for his efforts.  Fortunately, the motorist was treated in time and survived the bite.

Timber Rattlesnake - Check Out the Rattle

To sum up, you shouldn't have anything to worry about if you find a snake in your back yard in Hainesport.  You probably have more to fear from the turkeys.

Monkey Business

     I like chimpanzees.  I think baboons are annoying.  I'm fascinated by, but afraid of gorillas.  I dutifully make the rounds of zoos, but I really want to be in the monkey house.
     I saw the movie "Gorillas in the Mist" and I have to give Dian Fossey her props.  It took guts to get close to a silverback.  Whenever I visited the Philadelphia Zoo, I spent lots of time staring at Massa, the ape who held the title of oldest gorilla in captivity in the early 1980's.  Once I saw him sitting next to one of his keepers.  The two of them sat there in silent companionship.  I thought he looked sad, harmless and sad.  This was near the end of his 52 years, so maybe he was telepathically communicating that he was tired, or his teeth hurt, or life wasn't as much fun as it used to be.  To me, he was still frightening, huge, and powerful.  If something set him off, could he bite off a human head?  I could empathize from a distance, but I didn't want to touch his arm.
     I had my chance to get close to our simian brothers and sisters when I went on safari in Botswana.  Baboons were everywhere.  The cheeky monkeys descended on our camp every afternoon around three o'clock.  We watched them moving along in a great herd dragging bath towels and other items that the camp's residents carelessly left out in the open.  Occasionally, they used their opposable thumbs to unlatch a door and raid the inside of a tent.  The camp manager lost her favorite teddy bear to a thieving baboon.  One particular tent became the adolescent apes' playground.  The youngsters dropped onto the roof from the high tree branches, slid from peak to the edge, and hurtled off, as if the roof was a ski jump.  While on the fly, they reached out and grabbed the nearest branch, scampered to the top of the canopy, and repeated the routine.  The inhabitant of this tent couldn't take a siesta during the hottest part of the day because the racket  sounded like living inside a bass drum.

Baboon inducing roof rage

     

Baboon burglars

The worst thing about these baboons was their bathroom habits.  Campers had to be aware of who was sitting in the trees above and often had to dodge falling excrement.
     I fell in love with chimpanzees in 1961.  That's when the television show, "The Hathaways," premiered.  The show starred Peggy Cass,  Jack Weston, and three chimps.  The comedy was a semi-flop, lasting twenty-six episodes.  By it's end, I wanted a knuckle dragging sibling.  I frequently told my mother that I wanted a monkey.  Instead we had an English bulldog and a succession of stray cats.  I was pretty well into my twenties when I realized that chimps are wild animals with great strength and an unpredictable nature once they reach puberty.
     I no longer want to brush the back hair of a chimp wearing Pampers, but I still get the warm fuzzies when I see their comical faces.  Disneynature is opening a movie called "Chimpanzees" this weekend.  I'm usually not a fan of nature films, probably the vestiges of being forced to sit through too many episodes of "Wild Kingdom" at my grandparents' house, but I'll probably go to see "Chimpanzees."  I suppose it is safe to say "The Hathaways" this movie is not.

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/chimpanzee/photos/five-film-facts-chimpanzee-slideshow/five-film-facts-chimpanzee-photo-1334702910.html#crsl=%252Fmovie%252Fchimpanzee%252Fphotos%252Ffive-film-facts-chimpanzee-slideshow%252Ffive-film-facts-chimpanzee-photo-1334702910.html

Diaries and Blogs

     I just learned about a guy named Samuel Pepys.  He was an English naval administrator and a member of Parliament who lived from 1633-1703.  Though he did well professionally, what he's famous for is his diary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Pepys

     Beginning in 1660, and continuing for almost ten years, Pepys recorded the details of his life in his journal.  He wrote in a type of  shorthand, so that prying eyes could not read his entries.  After almost a decade of record keeping, the writing stopped.
     Up until the blogging started, diaries were private things.  Pepys wrote in code.  I doubt many high school girls go to that trouble, but they do lock up their books and secrete them away in the bottom of a drawer.
     Pepys memoir includes important historical information about the Great Fire of London and the Great Plague.  There were also juicy accounts of romantic dalliances conducted right under his wife's nose.  His books were also full of boring details about what he had for dinner.  Life can't be a three ring circus every day of the week.
     Samuel Pepys diary is available online, the entries matching today's month and day.

http://www.pepysdiary.com/

     Someone out there has even given Pepys a Twitter account.

http://twitter.com/#!/samuelpepys

     Pepys code has been broken, and his life is an open book - three hundred years after the fact.  Though writing styles have changed a bit, it's apparent that not much has changed since Pepys day.  Check out some of his more famous quotes:
     "I find my wife hath something in her gizzard that only waits an opportunity of being provoked to bring up, but I will not, for my content-sake, give it."  I've heard that the husband/wife dynamic is exactly like this in some households.
     "He that will not stoop for a pin will never be worth a pound."  I tell Mike the same thing when he rolls his eyes over me picking up pennies in parking lots.
     "In appearance, at least, he being on all occasions glad to be at friendship with me, though we hate one another, and know it on both sides."  Have you been following the reality TV show "Survivor?"
     I'm not operating under the delusion that anyone is going to be reading the contents of "Happy in Hainesport" in three hundred years.  Random House is not going to knock at the door asking to buy the rights.  I just want to get this writing thing out of my system.  I hope I can provide some entertainment in the process.

Senior Envy

     It's interesting how one's perspective changes.  I just saw a music video parody of Fun's song, "We Are Young."  In it, a bunch of thirty somethings whine that they are not young any more and that they've gotten nowhere in life.   They threaten to commit suicide by age forty if they haven't "made it" (or at least started a blog!).

http://screen.yahoo.com/we-re-not-young-28966610.html?pb_list=23dce613-c500-43f0-9134-70e58b73187a

     Maybe I shared some of their concerns once upon a time, but these days I don't care about my lost youth or missed opportunities.   I don't want to go back to school to become a lawyer.  All I want is my senior discount.  Yes, I have a full blown case of senior envy.  When I turned fifty, I received my favorite birthday gift ever - a membership to the AARP.  I'm trilled to be in that club, but it's going to be a few more years before I can buy a cheaper matinee ticket or flash my Medicare card for a half price bus ride.
     Why am I chomping at the bit to reach this milestone?  Because I think it's about time I got something for everything age has taken away.  I can't eat burritos anymore.  I can't wear a thong.  I've had to give up theme parks because my bones are too brittle to safely enjoy the rides.  Besides that, the bathrooms are too few and far between.  I wish I could look in the mirror and see only tired eyes and laugh lines.  I also see unwanted facial hair.  I need an application of hair coloring at the first sign of white roots.  Even my junk mail has changed.  I'm solicited for burial plots, electric wheelchairs, and hearing aids.
     The folks in the music video shouldn't fret.  In forty years no one will expect anything from them.  Things come full circle.  We go from Similac to Ensure, from Pampers to Depends.  The polite French refer to their senior citizens as persons of the troisieme age or third age.  The tell-it-like-it-is Americans say that oldsters have entered the second childhood.  That being the case, I don't want to be twenty-two again.  I want to be under twelve.  Besides getting a break on admission fees, maybe I'll develop the ability to play hand held video games.
 

Knitting

     My Cinnaminson Library Knitting Club made today's edition of the Burlington County Times.  Times photographer, Nancy Rokas, took some great pictures of the kids.

http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/burlington_county_times_news/knitting/image_ed0bfb21-c562-597f-937b-61abc23384fb.html

     Elaine Hollowell and I got to star in a short video.

http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/burlington_county_times_news/multimedia/knitting-class-at-the-cinnaminson-library/youtube_dc189faf-fba8-5ce6-9b33-83b0abc0d635.html

     Peg Quann's article weaves together the mother/daughter knitting experience, how I met Elaine and got involved in Cinnaminson's programs, and even plugs our upcoming hand sewing class.

http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/burlington_county_times_news/at-the-library-moms-and-daughters-knit-friendships/article_83022109-c610-5243-a059-0105b428c679.html?mode=print

     It is a privilege to be involved with these kids.  Thanks Aunt Dot for blowing off bedtime and teaching me to knit.

Woodpecker Reveille

     I woke up this morning to drilling on the roof.  When Mike and I heard the same sound the day before, we thought it was something vibrating in the furnace room.  Now we realized that the overhead sound was moving from place to place.  We got out the back door just in time to see a woodpecker taking off from the roof.
     The little devil came back a few more times during the very early morning hours.  By eight o'clock, he was done.  I was pretty sure there were no bugs on the roof, so why was Woody jackhammering the shingles?  Woodpeckers bore into trees to find food, excavate a nesting cavity, or attract mates.  They also drill into wood roofs or siding for the same reason.  They tap on non-wood surfaces to establish territory.  This is called drumming and it occurs in March, April, and May.  My red headed visitor intends to make my yard his domain.
     Though I might have had murder in my heart this morning at the crack of dawn, I'm forbidden to act upon the desire.  Woodpeckers are federally protected under the North American Migratory Bird Act.  The only thing I can do is make my roof less appealing for my morning percussionist. One solution is to hang shiny objects or stick mylar tape around vent stacks and chimneys since woodpeckers hate shiny things.  They also hate wet surfaces under their feet, so you can spray water on the roof.  Balloons might work, but the neighbors would start comparing this place to the house in the movie "Up."  Pest control companies suggest playing CD's of predator calls to scare the birds.  They also suggest buying a hawk decoy.  I read that you have to move the hawk every day so the woodpeckers don't catch on that he's made of plastic.

http://www.bamabirds.com/birdinfo/woodpeckers.htm 
http://www.wildlifedamagecontrol.net/woodpeckers.php

     Fifty percent of the time woodpeckers stop drumming in two weeks whether homeowners do anything or not.  The other fifty percent of the time you might feel like a player in this Andy Panda/Woody Woodpecker cartoon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU_HciKS6_E

     There is a legend about how the woodpecker came to be.  One day an old woman was baking cakes.  A Saint, faint with hunger, was wandering the roads and was drawn to her house by the smell of baking.  He asked for something to eat, but the old woman didn't want to give him such a big cake.  She made a smaller one, then decided that this cake was also too big.  Finally, she made a third, tiny cake.  When she took it out of the oven, it had puffed up to be much larger than she expected.  She told the Saint that her cakes were too big to give away.  This made the Saint angry.  He told the woman that she was too greedy to have human form.  She had food, shelter, and a warm fire, but she was too selfish to share.  He cursed her to a life of living as a bird, picking in the woods for nuts and berries and boring trees for her meager existence.  No sooner had the Saint said this than the woman flew up the chimney and came out the top as a woodpecker.
     If I could just get that bitch off my roof...    

Chains of Love

     All crocheted items begin with a chain of yarn.  From the foundation chain, the magic is worked.  The ladies of the Burlington County Crochet Guild work their magic twice per month at the Willingboro Senior Center.
     I began attending meetings in 2011.  It was a way for me to spend a couple of hours with a friend who was part of the Guild.  What started as a visit with one friend has turned into a visit with many friends.  The ladies are a warm, welcoming bunch.  We always spend time chatting at the beginning of a session, but before long, we settle into comfortable silence as we concentrate on our work.
     Everything we produce is given away.  We make afghans for homeless shelters, lap blankets for chemo patients, and beanies for newborns.  One project was making skull caps for our troops in Afghanistan.  They wear this simple hat under their helmets for warmth in the cold, mountainous region.
     The Burlington County Times featured the Guild in yesterday's paper.  You can watch a short video of the group and check out some pictures at phillyBurbs.com.

http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/burlington_county_times_news/willingboro-crocheting-group-spreads-love-with-its-donations/article_1e585fbd-f60f-5e0c-a77e-c0c9cb012bf6.html

     If you want to get involved, meetings are on the second Tuesday of the month from 1:00 p.m - 3:00 p.m and on the fourth Wednesday of the month from 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. at the Willingboro Senior Center.  Members of the Guild supply there own yarn.  We are always scouring thrift stores and Columbus Market for bargains.  We gladly accept all yarn donations, even small, left-overs from bigger projects. If you want to donate yarn, let me know.

Pinball Wizard

     I just saw the coolest video.  Nirvan Mullick produced a ten minute video about Caine Monroy, a nine year old who built his own cardboard arcade.  Caine spent his summer vacation going to work with his father at the family's used auto parts business.  Besides playing on the swing strung up in a tree in front of their building, Caine, who loves arcades, decided to make some arcade games from the multitude of cardboard boxes lying around his father's store room.  Unfortunately, there wasn't much foot traffic in front of the junk yard, so Caine didn't have any customers - until Nirvan Mullick came in to buy a part for his 1996 Corolla.  Nirvan couldn't resist purchasing a fun pass which entitled him to 500 plays for just $2.00.  Five hundred plays for just two bucks!  When Nirvan learned that he was Caine's only customer, he organized a flash mob to show up at the arcade, and he incorporated this into a film about the little entrepeneur.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faIFNkdq96U

Besides being a nice story about a creative kid who knows how to amuse himself, I saw some good parenting in this video.  Caine's dad George is not a father who disappears in the morning and shows up again at night.  By taking Caine to work, George becomes Caine's primary parent during the summer.  The psychologosts can't write enough articles about the importance of the father in a child's development.

http://www.citizenlink.com/2010/06/15/fathers-are-vital-to-healthy-child-development/

George is building Caine's confidence by supporting the arcade project.  He challenges Caine to build a claw machine instead of running out and buying one for him.  He's teaching Caine about business and possibly grooming him to take over the family enterprise.
     This film also demonstrates another of life's immutable facts.  No matter what resources kids have at their disposal, they'll have the most fun playing with the boxes.
        

 

Waste Not, Want Not

     My puppy Mardi is a vigorous chewer, and I was running through a rawhide bone each day.  This was getting expensive, but what could I give her to chew that would keep her away from our shoes and the furniture?  The answer was on the internet – bully sticks.

     My research told me that bully sticks last a long, long time.  They are a natural product and dogs love them, so went to Petsmart for a bag of bully sticks.

     The object of my search was not hard to find.  It was right there in the aisle with dozens of other dog chews.  There were dental chews for clean teeth and rawhide chews sized from a petite three inches to yard long specimens that looked like dinosaur bones.  There were plastic chews called Nyla-bones, but I wasn’t sure I wanted my dog to swallow the little bits of nylon that she would surely gnaw off the toy, so I chose the bully sticks.

     The first order of business was to read the package.  Bully sticks might stain fabrics.  That’s no problem because I can put an old towel under the dog while she enjoys a session of chewing.  They are “proudly” made in the United States.  That’s a plus.  Finally, I checked the

ingredients – 100% beef pizzle.  What is pizzle?  I asked a woman shopping next to me, “Do you have any idea what beef pizzle is?”  No, she didn’t.  I threw the question out to a group of shoppers in my aisle.  I got blank looks and shrugs.  I decided that if I didn’t know what comprised a bully stick, I wouldn’t buy it. 

     I returned home pizzleless and went straight to the internet.  I went to Google and searched “pizzle”.  Pizzle is an old English word for penis.  Next I googled “beef pizzle.”  Here’s what I found on www.bullysticks4dogs.com :

Bully sticks, also known as beef pizzles, pizzle sticks, beef sticks, steer stix, are made from 100% bull penises. Bull penis is a single ingredient of bully sticks. Some suppliers and merchants say that they sell bully sticks made of "beef tendons" or "dried muscles" as that part of the anatomy is a tendon and muscle indeed, and this may sound less repulsive for some people with psychological barrier thinking of feeding bull privates to their furbabies.

The article went on to explain the manufacturing process for turning you-know-whats into dog treats, but I won’t go into that here.

     My surprise turned to mirth.  Next, I sent emails to everyone I knew.  When my husband got home from work, I told him.  That’s when we reverted to adolescence. 

     “Where’s the dog?”

     “Eating her pizzle.”

     “Where would you like to go out to eat tonight?”

     “The Western Pizzler.”

     “Don’t be such a pickle puss,” became, “Don’t be such a pizzle puss.”

     I received responses to my emails.

     “Yuk!”

     “Don’t give those nasty things to your little girl.”

     But the little girl loved them, and a good sized pizzle lasted a week.  That was worth at least seven raw hide chews.  We decided to stick with bully sticks.

     I think these old saws pretty much sum up the bully stick experience:

     A wise head makes a closed mouth.  Remember that one the next time you are tempted to ask the general populace the definition of a word.

     You learn something new every day.

     And finally: Waste not, want not.  

Dollars and Sense

     Alexa Von Tobel is a financial guru who runs a web business( http://www.learnvest.com/) that offers a program to the masses to get themselves out of debt and on a firm financial footing.  Her basic advice, "You gotta have a plan."  Once you set up a 3-5 year plan, you employ Ms. Von Tobel's five financial principles:

Live by a budget
Prioritize debt repayment
Have six months of emergency savings
Start saving now for retirement
Negotiate your salary  (Huh??)


Ms. Von Tobel will share the basics for free, but you have to pay for a customized strategy to solve your individual financial mess.  A cynical person might say that the only person getting richer here is Ms. Von T.  

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/5-keys-financial-success-142148289.html

     Another of Von Tobel's charges is that financial literacy is not taught in school.  At this point, I puffed up and felt proud of my Hainesport School primary education.  Mr. Seiler, Hainesport's seventh and eighth grade math teacher in the mid to late 1960's, taught us how to manage a checking account.  We learned how to write checks, record them, make deposits, deduct account fees, and balance our accounts.  If Mr. Seiler could have followed us to high school, I'm sure he would have taught us about household budgeting, financing cars, and buying houses.
     The last bit of information Ms. Von Tobel drove home was that 61% of Americans live from paycheck to paycheck.  She probably has dollar signs flashing in her eyes thinking about the sheer numbers who could subscribe to her plan.
     I have another suggestion.  Everyone should read a book titled The Wealthy Barber by David Chilton.  This very readable book will teach you pretty much everything you need to know about personal finance.  The book's main character asks his successful father for some financial pointers.  The father says that he learned how to manage money from the town barber.  He takes his son to the barber for a haircut and some pecuniary advice.  The son returns regularly for haircuts which also include a monetary lesson.  The barber covers Ms. Von Tobel's first four principles and much more.  He does not touch on negotiating salary, though.  I'm thinking that most of us don't have much room to negotiate in the salary department.              
     Along with money for college, I gave this book to my niece and nephews as a high school graduation gift.  June is approaching.  I suggest including a copy of The Wealthy Barber with your gift to the graduate.  It might be what keeps them from being in the 61%.      


       

Peep, Peep

           Easter is Sunday, April eighth.  When I was a kid, people practiced a terrible tradition of giving chicks to children as Easter presents.  Chicks are fuzzy and cute and can live in a cardboard box.  Chickens are neither fuzzy nor cute.  They'll peck their way out of the box and walk around the house, pooping as they go.  Thank goodness that the only chicks we give today are made of chocolate or marshmallow.  I had my experience with chicks as a youngster.  It didn't have anything to do with Easter, though.  It was about the Hainesport School Science Fair.  

     I was in the seventh grade, and I needed a science project.  My teenage neighbor was visiting the house during the time I discussed the Science Fair with my mother.  Our visitor described a high school student’s project – the hatching of chickens.  The young scientist showed the hatching process from egg to fuzzy, yellow peep by breaking an egg into a jar of preservative each day of the 21-day incubation period. 

     I was fascinated by the idea of twenty-one jars of almost-chickens floating in formaldehyde.  Also, I was sure to win if I, a seventh grader, could reproduce a high schooler’s project.

          My parents set up a Sears incubator, a remnant from years before, when they raised chickens and sold eggs.  It was made out of gray metal, the same as garbage cans.  It resembled a giant cake dish with an equally giant cover.  The cover had a little window and some air vents.  The not-so-high-tech interior contained a light bulb, a thermometer and a pan for water. 

     As soon as the apparatus was set up in the basement, on top of the ping-pong table, I put the fertile eggs inside, plugged in the incubator and began my chicken production.

     I had learned that the eggs should be placed large end down and pointed end slightly up.  The humidity should be fairly high; that was the reason for the water pan.  To keep the temperature at 100 degrees, I adjusted the vents.  During the first eighteen days of incubation, I turned the eggs four to six times.  So that I didn’t miss turning any eggs, I marked the shells with an “X” on one side.  I didn’t turn the eggs during the last 3 days.

          Since my parents vetoed cracking open an example every day - it would be a waste of a good chicken and might be too gruesome a sight for the dainty first graders who would be inspired by our projects - I had to study pictures in books, then draw posters showing the twenty-one days of development.

     Everything came off without a hitch.  My written report was exceptional.  My posters were artistically rendered.  A fluffy peep, kept out of reach of children, attested to the success of my project.  I won first prize!

          In addition to the chick on display at the science fair, there were eighteen more of unknown gender running around one corner of the basement.  My parents viewed them, the girls at least, as a source of free eggs.  The excess eggs could be sold to pay for feed.  The boys would be meat on the table.  I had a feeling I would be working on this science project for years to come.

     As I said, the sex of the chicks was unknown because it is difficult to determine the male or female status of a newly hatched chicken.  It is an art that was, for years, known only to certain Japanese people.  Then, in 1933, the secret got out when two Japanese scientists published a paper explaining the technique of separating the boys from the girls.  For my family’s purposes, we waited until our brood started growing feathers.  By about six weeks of age, we could distinguish hens from roosters.

     The birds grew and left the basement to live in a rehabbed coop.  They could exit their chicken house and run freely in an enclosed area.  The fence was about eight feet high but, as an added precaution to prevent escapes, my father trimmed their wing feathers.   The girls grew into contented layers.  As planned, all but one of the boys became stewed chicken.  Maybe another child would have balked at eating his or her science project for dinner, but I don’t remember having felt guilty.  My attitude was probably tempered by the fact that tending chickens was added to my list of chores.

     My education in chickens continued for several years.  One of the first things I learned was that those sweet, fuzzy peeps grew up to be cannibals.  The poor bird at the bottom of the pecking order had a miserable existence.  If blood was drawn, the attack was merciless. 

     Another thing I learned was that chickens have a pouch in their throats called a craw.  It contains gritty things like little stones that they have picked up.  The craw grinds up what chickens eat before the food passes on to their stomachs.  Sometimes, the craw gets clogged up, making the bird crawbound.  This happened to one of our chickens.  In order to prevent almost certain death, my father disabled the hen, sliced open her neck, cleaned out the craw and sewed it up.
     Laying hens live about seven years.  As they age, they produce fewer eggs.  We kept the chickens three or four years and gave them away when they started eating all the profits of the egg business.  Finally, my science project had ended.

Me, tending my parents' original batch of chickens in 1955

     For all who celebrate Easter, have a wonderful holiday.  I'll be back on Monday.

Maintenance

     Sometimes my father would talk about his military service during World War II.  Once I asked where they showered when they were tramping around the forest and sleeping in fox holes.  The answer was, "We didn't."  Of course the next question was, "How long was it until you could get a shower?"  The answer, weeks, made me turn up my nose.  Despite what your mother told you when you were growing up, humans don't need a daily bath or shower.  We also don't need deodorant.  No, I'm not going to confess that I gave up my Lady Speed Stick in 1999.  I bathe every day and use deodorant (and baby powder and a yummy after bath spray I got at Bath and Body Works).  However, my dermatologist would, no doubt, advise less bathing since my skin gets really dry in the winter.  The best hygiene advice is to wash your hands lots, and keep them away from your face.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/fashion/31Unwashed.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&ref=fashion

     There are a lot of other health rules out there that can be ignored.  People don't necessarily need eight glasses of water per day.  Said water does not have to be filtered or come from a pure underground spring.  Plain, old tap water is fine - actually, it's preferred.
     I recently read an article that tells us we can break other health rules.  Here goes:

1. Extended wear contact lenses, the ones you sleep in, can last 4-5 weeks, instead of two weeks, if you take them out at night.

2. You don't have to visit the dentist twice per year.  Once is enough if you are not having a problem.

3. You can eat any time of day or night.  The total caloric intake is what is important, not the time of day the calories are consumed.  So, have a bedtime snack.

4. You don't need to throw milk out when it reaches it's expiration date.  Take a sniff.  If it smells okay, then drink it.  If it tastes bad, no problem.  The main ingredient in cheese and yogurt is spoiled milk.  My sister once asked if she should throw out a container of yogurt that had reached it's expiration date.  My brother-in-law's answer, "What's it going to do, go fresh?"  If yogurt isn't fuzzy, it's good to eat.  If cheese is fuzzy, trim it off.  What lies beneath is fit to lay on a cracker.

5. You don't have to brush and floss twice per day.  Once, at bedtime, is enough.  I'll ignore this one and continue with the twice daily routine.

http://health.yahoo.net/experts/menshealth/9-healthy-habits-do-you-no-good

Here's my rule:  Relax.  Don't sweat the small stuff.  It's good to know that if you do sweat, a shower and deodorant is not mandatory.

Bleep

          I taught a private knitting lesson yesterday.  When things got a little challenging, my student said, "I hope I don't start to swear."
         Ah, a kindred soul, I thought.  "Go right ahead," I encouraged.
          I learned the joys of cursing in 1968 when I was fifteen years old.  The person responsible for that was the girl who sat in front of me in study hall.  She accomplished her task innocently enough – she loaned me a tattered copy of a book she had found in her mother’s collection.  By today’s standards, Betty MacDonald’s tale, The Egg and I, was a chaste account of a city girl transplanted to the country.  She chronicled her adjustment to life as the wife of an egg farmer.  For the heroine, learning to farm also meant learning to swear.  Uttering “hell” and “damn” became as natural as breathing.  To round out my education, my study hall friend next loaned me Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House written by Eric Hodgins.  Mr. Blandings found that building a home in the country was impossibly frustrating unless one blew off a little steam by calling a few things "Christ-bitten."

     Reading curse words was one thing.  Saying them out loud was another.  I did not begin swearing in earnest until I became a college student.  The Rutgers Daily Targum, our newspaper, was peppered with obscenities.  We were required to read Chaucer, Shakespeare and Ben Johnson, all of whom used swearing and sexual references in their works.  At this point I found that I could let a few choice words slip out in front of my mother.  Soon we were both swearing like sorority sisters. 

     The outside world was not as hip as mom and I, but it didn’t take long to catch up.  Characters on the regular television channels began swearing like Mr. Blandings.  Characters on the cable channels used George Carlin’s list of seven dirty words and even added a few new ones. 

     I found a series of swearing dictionaries in the bookstore and purchased English/Spanish and English/French versions.  Why was I collecting profanities? 

     Toward the end of his life, my father suffered a stroke.   He lost his ability to speak, that is, until he got upset.  Then he could unleash a stream of expletives.  What was going on here?  Could dirty words be so deeply ingrained in our brains that they remained after other speech was lost?

     I learned that human brains do not store swearing in the same area as regular speech. Language, a higher function, resides in the cortex or outer layer of the brain.  Swearing is connected to the limbic system and basal ganglia deeper (and safer) within the brain.  The limbic system houses memory and emotions.  The basal ganglia play a role in impulse control.  Curse words are not just words, but words bonded to emotions and self control. 

     People swear to relieve stress.   Perhaps this venting prevents physical violence. Even chimpanzees have a grunting, spitting, and gesturing ceremony that looks like a swearing match. 

     Swearing is tied to culture.  It seems the more private the matter or the more revered the subject, the more ways people will find to disparage it.  Body functions, religion, and your mother are all fair game.

     When I read those funny books in high school, I began to feel grown up.  The dirty words made the books adult literature.  Swearing and laughter go together for me, but I’m not one to curse when I get angry.  I would rather use big vocabulary words then, so you know how smart I am.

     Sometimes, for a little fun, I get out those dictionaries and practice cussing in other languages, and I laugh my a - - off!

Beer and Jaeger Schnitzel

     Every March for the past several years I have taxied my three older friends to the annual German-American Cultural Society dinner dance.  My immigrant pals look forward to this outing.  They have a little wine and stuff themselves with sauerkraut, spaetzle, and red cabbage.  After dinner, they dance the night away. Of course, they polka, but they also waltz, two step, and tango.  It seems to me that every native born German has been instructed in the art of ballroom dancing.  The musical program is always provided by Willi Aust, a lone accordion playing, bi-lingual singing gentleman.  Willi has a ruddy complexion and one of the brightest smiles I've ever seen.  He'll lead the crowd in so many renditions of "Ein Prosit" (a German ditty that's kind of like chanting, " Chug, chug, chug!") that you should have a designated driver for the ride home.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD2-aSbcW0s

Willi Aust

Willi and dinner chairperson, Debra White 

     The program for the night doesn't change much - they discuss a little business, get down to eating and dancing, sell some fifty/fifty tickets, and hand out some door prizes.  I like the way they open the event with the Pledge of Allegiance and close it with singing "God Bless America."  It's fun to get into cahoots with your roots and party German style, but no one has forgotten that they are American.

Me and two of my gals

     My three buddies were transplanted to U.S. soil.  It's here that they have flowered gloriously.  They are three of the most beautiful blossoms in my bouquet of friends.

     FYI - The German American Cultural Society of South Jersey is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and fostering German culture.  If you would like to learn more, call Warren Kahler, President at (856) 227-2297 or email: kahler900@comcast.net.
Dirndls and lederhosen not required for membership!