What a Lovely Suprise! Two New Crappy Old History Books on Farming

I was rather testy this morning. I complained that I was going to spend a considerable part of my day

chopping vegetables,

processing tomatoes-- some chopped, some pureed--

sautee-ing said veggies,

and adding homegrown dried herbs

to the veggie-tomato concoction.

Not to mention that I had to bake zucchini bread and do my Monday chores, leaving me with no time to do what I really wanted to do: lay around eating bon bons and reading crappy old books. 

As it turns out, my sacrifice is appreciated!

The card

and sentiments that accompanied the lovely surprise...

TWO NEW CRAPPY OLD BOOKS ON FARMING!

Thank you, Daughter C & Miss M!

What a Lovely Suprise! Two New Crappy Old History Books on Farming!

Although I've only spent a few minutes thumbing through it, I already love the smaller volume, Farm Management (Jacob Hiram Arnold. The Macmillan Company, New York. 1919). It talks about the farm "labourer,"

Thus the men who labour on such farms are intelligent, have initiative, take responsibility, learn to be self-reliant, energetic and thrifty. Because democratic institutions and customs prevails in such communities, men trained in this way find opportunity to employ their training... .

Long story short-- they are citizens.

There's a great black and white plate of orchards in Appalachia. I learn that in 1904 the cost of ploughing, disking, harrowing, drilling, heading and stacking, etc. was $5.55 per acre.

How could I not fall in love with this crappy old book filled with simple charts and tables?
~~

The larger volume, English Farming: Past and Present (The Right Honorable Lord Ernle. Long, Green and Co., London, New York. 1922) is reference book, of a certain sort. Reading the preface, I'm not at all sure I understand the author's point of view.


The book traces framing in England from the 1200's to the WWI. Given 800 years, the author's point of view may matter. 


What do you make of this-- one of the authors' two convictions that motivated the first (1912), and second (1922) editions:

[T]he small number of person who owned agricultural land might some day make England the forcing-bed of schemes for land-nationalisation, which countries, where the ownership of the soil rested on a more democratic basis, repudiated as destructive of all forms of private property.

 What a great book to have in my library! 

Thank you!

 

That's Scary!

'Scarecrow' by Daughter C with assistance from Miss M

Missy has been having some... issues lately. Her behavior regarding the American Crow, Corvus brachyrhynchos, is funny during the day. But at dawn, when she wakes not only Mr. Big Food and I but also poor little vicious pit bull Rocky from his slumber with her ferocious barking, well, something had to give. And so we have a Scarecrow made from various elements in the shop. Zoom in and you'll she that the scarecrow's head is an owl wearing a hard hat. If that's not enough to scare the crows, I don't know what is.

There's just one problem. It scares Missy, too.

A Tiny Rant Concerning Those Ignorant Young Americans Freeloading in Your Basement

We don't have a basement. Neither Miss M nor Daughter C nor A. Leland are ignorant, that's for sure! But they are Americans!!

This little rant has been brewing for some time. Today's the day the kettle whistled.

Yesterday morning, Mr. Big Food brought me morning coffee, we chatted, he made breakfast, I watered the Fall garden, he baked Gubo's squash dressing for the tailgate (Go Dawgs), Miss M and I took the dogs to the pasture, A. Leland had coffee and did some reading on the patio, and Daughter C arrived home and went for a two-mile run. 

And then we hung around, figured out how to efficiently transport the dressing, collected our game-day stuff and-- at 10:30am-- Mr. Big Food, A. Leland and I departed for Starkvegas, leaving Miss M and Daughter C to tidy up the kitchen and so forth.

INSERT UNEVENTFUL TAILGATE

Mr. Big Food & A. Leland went to the game. I walked back to the truck-- have I mentioned that it was hot yesterday?-- and drove home. After chatting briefly with Miss M, I took a nap. And then I fired up my computer and learned that Americans are ignorant and everyone under the age of 40 is living in a basement under his parents' house!  Okay-- maybe not everyone. 

Some 36 percent of young adults between 18 and 31 are still living at home with their parents.

Why must this arrangement-- family members living in close proximity to one another-- be undesirable? Why is the goal to scatter families members to the wind, only to be in physical proximity at Christmas, or to "see" one another during a weekly-- monthly-- Skype chat?

Just down the road from the Farm, at the other end of the cotton field, are six homes within a hundred yards or so of each other. Each home is inhabited by a singular Cotton Farming Family. And Each Cotton Farming Family Home is related to the next Cotton Farming Family Home. As we travel the back roads of  Mississippi, we see lots of these family enclaves on roads that bear the family name.

So why is it a problem to have family members about? Where's the argument that individuals flourish better when alone?

Why-- as in what's the justification-- for thinking that children (and dear friends) must cut ties and cut out on their own? How exactly will they be better off alone?

I'm sure there are looser parents with looser kids in their basements. That's too bad. But you know what? Failure is a choice. (Red Stegall said that and I agree.) 

I'm equally sure that ours is not the only home where parents and adult children are flourishing under one roof. There must be other homes

where no assertion about history goes unchallenged because the occupants know where the relevant books are;

where answers to empirical questions about South African plants are looked up on Wikipedia, as a last resort;

where family jokes are created and family history  recounted;

where there's no need for a chore list because the inhabitants of the home are courteous adults;

where there's laughter and music and everyone can hum along to "Sing A Family Song."

Hey! Mr. Low-Man-on-the-Totem-Pole-Who's-Tasked-with-Reading-My-Little-Blog. You should be so lucky as to have family and friends as I do! Ha. You lonely looser. 

(It's not too late, Mr. Low-Man-- although we are running out of room. But you could build a cabin, if you'd like. Not sure about running water. But it'd be worth it. I mean, come on. When was the last time you talked about Roger Bacon? or St. Elmo's Fire? or Hume? You could learn a a lot.)

If You're Wondering

how Bambi's doing... .

He's just fine.

How do I know this?

I just went out to get the mail and he and his mother were standing not 10' from the mailbox. His mother saw and scooted down the driveway. Bambi hesitated for a split second, and then followed her as quickly as he could. He still has his spots and is cute as the dickens.

Why does Bambi's mother have him out at 1:30pm when feels like 97°? Shouldn't he be safe at home in the woods?

Another Day, Another Cookout!

Mr. Big Food and I are making the rounds 'round campus grilling Boca Burgers™, Ballpark Franks™ and Walmart Burgers™ for starving artists and thinkers.* [where "starving' modifies both artists and thinkers]

Yes. That is a County School Bus on Campus. Get over it.

And yes, that is a charcoal fire. With wood chunks. And yes, carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere. And that Big Crappy Old Oak Tree is Loving it.

Breathe Deep Crappy Old Oak Tree.

Students are in charge of these events. I try to not interfere too much. 

Guidance: Prepare the ketchup & mustard bottles by taking the little paper things off the lids before the dogs & burgers are ready.

I do what I can to help. I've come to enjoy toting a grill on a trailer to and fro.

I do what I can to help. 

I'm self-teaching how to back up with a trailer attached. 

That's one of of those Country Boys Will Survive Sorts of Things.

~~

I had in mind that I might talk about a new crappy old book. But I'm not gonna. It was hot today. I'm putting in the fall garden. I had to tote the ... .

G'night. 

Recipe: Scalloped Potatoes II (Veganizable)

Veganized!

To veganize, substitute almond milk. Use pretend butter for breadcrumbs.

SCALLOPED POTATOES II

Serves 6

6-8 medium potatoes, pared and sliced thin (6 C)

¼ C onion, chopped fine

1/3 C flour

1 ½ tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

2 C milk

3 Tbsp fine buttered bread crumbs (see instructions in Basics section)

Preheat oven to 350^o. Place half the sliced potatoes in a greased 2 quart casserole. Top with half the onion, sift half the flour over, and sprinkle with half the seasonings. Repeat layering. Pour milk over all. If desired, sprinkle top with buttered bread crumbs. Cover and bake for 1 ¼ -1 ½ hours, then uncover and bake 15 minutes longer.

Recipe: Creative Cooking Pork Casserole with Cider

Use fresh rosemary if possible

“This savory pork casserole gets its delicious flavor from the blend of rosemary and apple cider with the pork. Use fresh rosemary if at all possible or use the dried leaf rosemary.”—The Creative Cooking Course (1982)

CREATIVE COOKING PORK CASSEROLE WITH CIDER

3 lbs lean cubed pork

¼ C flour

½ C cooking oil

3 C apple cider

6 small carrots, sliced

3 leeks or 1 medium onion, chopped

¾ tsp rosemary

2 tsp salt

1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 325^o. Dredge pork cubes with flour. Heat oil in a large frying pan until sizzling, add pork, and cook until browned, stirring occasionally. Remove pork with a slotted spoon and place in casserole. Drain excess oil from frying pan, pour in cider, and heat cider, stirring to remove browned particles from bottom of pan. Add carrots, leeks, and rosemary to pork in casserole, stir in hot cider, season with salt and pepper, cover, and bake 2 hours or until pork is tender.

WRONG: Who should the United States befriend?

RIGHT: Whom should the United States befriend?

Harbrace Handbook of English p.78 (1951)

The conversation turned 'round to a grammar question the other evening. Who vs. Whom? Miss M was studying and we did not have the benefit of her input. We tossed around a few "virtually essential" possible rules based on For Whom the Bell Tolls and finally decided that it was an empirical question, the answer to which would likely be found in a crappy old book.

To that end, and since nothing of import happened in the World, on the World Wide Web, or on the Farm today, I present to you Who, Whom, and Whose.

"Wait just a gall-dang minute," you're shouting. 

Alright, already! I hear ya! There's no need to shout. You'll wake the dogs.

"Why get Whose-- or for that matter Who's on First-- involved in this? I thought you were just going to 'splain when to use Who and when to use Whom! Not that I care all that much anyway, Marica. I mean, really, Who cares?"

That's a fine point, but hear me out. Leaving Whose out of the picture would be like saying "I-me-" and forgetting "mine." And that just don't seem right. If you're going to say, "I" and "me" why not just finish what you intended to say and say "mine?"

Who, and it's forms, Whom and Whose, are pronouns. Unlike most nouns (en inglés, que es) most pronouns change case based on how they are used in the sentence. The interrogative and relative pronoun Who is no different than most. Used as the subject of a sentence or clause, one uses the nominative case Who. As the object of a sentence, clause or preposition, the objective case Whom. And as a possessive relative pronoun, the possessive Whose.

I found this helpful:

A Writer's Manual and Workbook Enlarged Edition p.46 (1944); See there? I-me-mine. Note: singular and plural relative pronouns have the same form. Thank the Lord!

Let's re-write the WRONG and RIGHT question sentences which use the interrogative Who as

The United States should befriend ___Who / Whom___?

Let's re-write the re-written WRONG and RIGHT question sentence as if it were answered.

The United States should befriend ________. 

[Pick a country. Any civilized country will do-- it's grammar, not foreign policy.]

Clearly, your civilized country of choice is the object of the sentence. Thus, in the question we need the objective form Whom.

The WRONG / RIGHT example comes from The Harbrace Handbook of English, Whose author notes

Before the verb, the interrogative who is acceptable colloquial English, but formal English requires the objective whom.

With respect to Who as a relative pronoun, I initially found this, from The Writing of English (1938), virtually essentially useless:

The case of a pronoun depends entirely upon its syntax; it may or may not be in the same construction as its antecedent:

I saw a man who knows you.
I saw a man whom you know.

I thought just as virtually essentially useless-- especially if you are a smidgen rusty on the vocabulary of grammar, as am I-- was this from The Essentials of English Composition Revised Edition 1945):

A pronoun that joins a dependent clause to a substantive is called a relative pronoun. Careful writers use who to refer to persons, which to refer to things, and that to refer to persons of things.

1. That is preferred to who or which (a) when the relative clause is restrictive ... or (b) ...

[Keep in mind that That / Which is an interesting issue for which / that I have no time (for) here.]

This, however, was useful (The Essentials, p57):

The case of a relative pronoun, like that of a personal pronoun, is determined by the function of the connective in its own clause, not by the case of the antecedent.

That's the syntax of "depends entirely upon its syntax."

So if a pronoun can join, a noun can separate.

I saw a man. A man knows you. 

Nominative case.

I saw a man. You know a man. 

Objective. 

What could be more simple? 

Subject-Nominative-Who

Object-Objective-Whom

Possessive-Possessive-Whose

RIGHT: Whom should the United States befriend? 

Good question. First answer? The United States.
~~

This post is dedicated to Daughter C, Mike, and A. Leland, without whom I would not have asked the Who / Whom question. 

This post is brought to you by the following crappy old books, without which I could not have answered the Who / Whom question.

A. Howry Espenshade, THeodore J. Gates, and Richard D. Mallery. The Essentials of English Composition Revised Edition. D.C. Heath and Company, Boston. 1945.

John C. Hodges. Harbrace Handbook of English. Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, Chicago. 1951.

Paul P. Kies. A Writer's Manual and Workbook Enlarged Edition. F.S. Crofts & Co., New York. 1944.

John Matthews Manly, Edith Rickert and Martin Freeman. The Writing of English (Complete Edition). Henry Holt and Company, New York. 1938.   

Recipe: Cabbage Cooked in Milk (Veganizable)

ummmm cabbage

To veganize, substitute almond milk

CABBAGE COOKED IN MILK

Serves 6 to 8

2 C rich milk

5 C shredded cabbage

¾ tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

Scald milk in top of double boiler (or saucepan over low heat), and cabbage, and stir thoroughly. Cover tightly and cook over hot water (or very low heat) for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Season with salt and pepper.

Recipe: Casserole Fricassee and more!

Awfully good!

Mr. Big Food made the basic fricassee recipe.

CASSEROLE FRICASSEE, AND BAKED CHICKEN IN CREAM AND CHICKEN AND MUSHROOM CASSEROLE VARIATIONS

Serves 8

4 lb chicken, cut into serving portions

¼ C milk

¼ C flour

1 tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

½ C fat

½ lb mushrooms, halved or quartered if large

1 Tbsp chopped onion (or more, to taste)

2 C hot cream or evaporated milk

Preheat oven to 350^o. Combine flour, salt, and pepper. Dip chicken pieces in milk, then roll in flour mixture. Brown chicken in fat and remove to a lightly greased deep baking dish. Cook mushrooms and onions for 3 minutes in drippings remaining in skillet used to cook chicken, and add to chicken in baking dish. Cover with cream. Bake until chicken is tender and cream has reduced to a thick sauce, 1 to 2 hours.

BAKED CHICKEN IN CREAM

Omit mushrooms and onions from above recipe.

CHICKEN AND MUSHROOM CASSEROLE

Omit mushrooms, onions, and cream from above recipe. Add ½ C hot water to chicken before baking. When chicken is tender, mix together 1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup with ¾ C milk, heat, and pour over chicken. Bake 15 to 20 minutes longer.

Recipe: Old Fashioned Coffee Cake

Photo taken with my little camera and not touched up. It's really a much prettier coffee cake.

Mr. Big Food had a pear sitting in the fridge so he cut it up and added it to the middle of the batter. A delicious touch!

OLD FASHIONED COFFEE CAKE

1 C sour cream

1 tsp baking soda

1 stick butter, softened

1 C sugar

2 eggs, beaten well

1 tsp vanilla

1 ¾ C cake flour

2 tsp baking powder

¼ C brown sugar

1 Tbsp ground cinnamon

2 Tbsp finely chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

Preheat oven to 350^o. Combine sour cream and soda in a bowl. In another bowl, blend butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla, beating well. Sift together flour, and baking powder,, and add to creamed mixture alternately with sour cream mixture. Combine brown sugar and cinnamon (and nuts, if using). Pour half the batter into a greased tube cake pan or an 8 inch square pan, sprinkle with half the brown sugar mixture, and repeat layering with remaining batter and brown sugar mixture. Bake 45 minutes.

Recipe: Okra Casserole I

Eat your veggies!

OKRA CREOLE I

Serves 4

1 C okra, sliced, boiled in a small amount of salted water for 10 minutes, drained

1 medium onion, chopped

1 bell pepper, chopped

2 Tbsp salad oil

3 fresh tomatoes, quartered OR 1 C canned tomatoes

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp flour

½ tsp salt

½ tsp pepper

Dash Tabasco (or more, to taste)

Brown onion and pepper in oil, add tomatoes, and cook 5 minutes. Add drained okra, sugar, flour, salt, pepper, and Tabasco, and cook 5 minutes longer.

Recipe: Queen's Beans

Yummy!

“This easy-to-fix vegetable dish can be a hearty meal-in-one with the addition of ham, ham hocks or hamburger. (Recipe contest entry: Mrs. Gil (Queen) Murphy, San Diego, CA)”

“Serve with lemon juice.”—The Garlic Lovers’ Cookbook (1980)

QUEEN’S BEANS

1 C small white beans

7 C cold water

1 tsp salt

¼ tsp paprika

2 large onions, quartered

½ C tomato sauce (preferably homemade—see recipes in Basics and Canning … sections)
10 large cloves fresh garlic, halved

½ C parsley springs

¼ C olive oil

Cook beans in water for 1 hour, add salt, paprika, and onions, cover pot, and cook 1 hour longer. Add tomato sauce, garlic, parsley, and olive oil, and cook 30 minutes longer.

I Don't Know About You, But We Labored Hard This Weekend

We did some chain sawing.

We cleaned up after chain sawing. 

We installed new outdoor light fixtures.

We fed a multitude of people.

We-- and I'm using "we" to designate anyone who was here this weekend-- put up a new tree stand.

We moved in.

We unpacked boxes.

We re-chained the chain on the saw chain.

We had a labored discussion about the phrase, "virtually essential." That took five hours.

We took out the trash and did the dishes multiple times.

We went grocery shopping and discovered some mis-marked baby back ribs. $1.99/lb. Score.

We studied.

We wrote.

We argued.

We quoted Hume:

Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

And we discussed Hume ad nauseum.

Some of them-- not I or Mr. Big Food-- stayed up until the wee hours talking about moral obligation.

And we put up some pumpkin.

I am not going to tell you how much pumpkin we put up because it's none of your beezwax.

And we tried to remember the who/whom rules. We decided we should look it up.

Population Explosion

Within the last two days, the human population of the Farm has exploded a whopping 66.6667%. The same can be said for the non-human mammalian population. 

Welcome back, Daughter C!

Welcome, A. Leland!

Rocky! At what are you barking?

Oh. Look. Isn't that Mike's car rolling up the driveway?

As I've said many times, what's the point of having a Farm if you can't share it with those you love?