3rd Anniversary

Grief comes in waves.  You are fine for this little period of time and then like a wave it rushes over you and you are for a few minutes consumed with grief and tears.  And like a wave it recedes until it comes again.  There is nothing anyone can do or say that comforts you and you move through the experience like molasses.  Gradually you emerge...forever changed.  You learn to live with the heartache and pain.  You learn that you can laugh again, have fun again but the grief is never far away and at any moment like a wave it will wash over you again.  At least that was my experience and continues to be.
-Lyn Kulczyk Pool


Death leaves a heartache no one can heal...time lessons the heartache that only you feel....love leaves a memory no one can steal.
- Headstone in Ireland

It's that time of year.

A week ago I was hanging up laundry and hear a little scream.  At this time of the year it usually means a blotched water snake has gotten a frog or something else is being eaten by a snake. 
So of course I had to go investigate.  I put Bonnie inside and headed toward the noise. 
Standing on a rock I was able to see this guy eating a baby cottontail.  I saw him strike the baby (nature can be so cruel) a couple of times and then begin to swallow the baby. 

I called my husband to come and see the drama unfolding before my eyes.  Bob was able to quickly kill this guy.  Unfortunately he'd already eaten 2 of the babies in the nest, the 3rd baby was in the snakes mouth when Bob killed him and if there was a 4th in the nest I will never know.  By the time I rechecked the nest making sure that there were no snakes in the vicinity, it looked like momma cottontail had moved the baby to a safer place. 

We've had lots of rain that's bringing them out but also the temperature is lower because of the rain so they are moving more as well. 

The beauty of camo.  Do you see him?

This is a Texas Rat Snake.  This happened a couple of days after the rattlesnake.  I went into a storage area that is under our porch.  I wasn't expecting to see a snake there and it scared me just a little bit.

Spring

We've had some rain this Spring.  We haven't had a lot but we've had enough to make all the plants happy and to get a good start on our vegetable garden.  So I thought I just post all these wonderful pictures of what is blooming in the garden right now. 

 

The Rose in the title picture  is a variety called "Old Blush".  I love it because its easy to take care of, it still smells like a rose and it's a climber.  The highest bloom right now is about 18 Ft. off the ground.
Enjoy!!

We've not had a tremendous amount of rain and Bob and I like to kid that we have our own personal high pressure system that sits right above our home that prevents us from getting a lot of the rain that we see, smell and hear.  But we've had enough to bring out the blossoms. 

Meringue...yum

I had a birthday....a milestone birthday a month ago.  I turned 60 and I'm still trying to wrap my head around that, it's a strange place to be.  I've never minded getting older or telling people the age that I am.  Just never bothered me and I'm not bothered by turning 60 it's just kinda strange to keep saying it outloud.  At any rate that is not what this post is about but it has a little something to do with it. 

I am not a cake eater.  I do like some cakes but if given the choice I would much rather have pie and my favoite pie is Lemon Meringue.  So on my birthday my mom always made me a Lemon Meringue Pie and in my opinion she made the best. 

The last couple of years that my mom was alive she was too ill to make me a pie and so I did without.  And the last couple of years since she has been gone I didn't really have the heart to make it myself but this year changed all that.  I felt that I was ready for the challenge. 

The Lemon filling is no secret, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, eggs, water and cornstarch.  But this post is about the crowning glory of any meringue pie and that is the meringue. 

Meringue simply put is egg whites, sugar and maybe a little cream of tartar, but there are different ways to make meringue and that's what this post is really about. 

Meringue can be put into 2 classes....Hard or Soft.  Hard meringues are usually made the same as soft meringues but then they are baked in a very low oven for a very long time to dry them out.  A lot of times these hard meringues are piped onto a sheet of parchment paper and made into a "nest" or "bowl" so to speak and then filled with berries, ice cream, custard or cream.  But I'm not going to talk about that kind of meringue.  I'm going to talk about soft meringue. 

Soft meringues are made by whipping eggs whites, sugar and cream of tartar and maybe even a touch of vanilla or almond extract.  But if you heat the egg whites with the sugar or make a sugar syrup and add it to the egg whites you get an entirely different creature than just whipping room temperature eggs whites with sugar....it's magical, satiny smooth and almost the consistency of marshmallo fluff.  Incredible stuff. 

If you combine hot sugar syrup with the eggs whites its called Italian meringue, think Divinity candy.  If you combine egg whites and sugar and heat that up it's called Swiss meringue.  I'm talking about Swiss meringue for the sake of this post. 

I think that putting Swiss meringue on a Lemon Meringue Pie is highly unconventional and my mom never did it that way but after making a few Baked Alaska's for various family members and using Swiss Meringue for that I just felt like it would be a delicious addition to Lemon Meringue Pie.  And in my opinion it is. 

So here is what you do....the porportions are 1/4 cup of sugar per egg white.  So if you have 3 egg whites then you have 3/4 cup of sugar. You can add a touch of cream of tartar to stabalize it just a bit but it's not necessary and you can also add vanilla or almond extract but that is completely optional. 

Take your egg whites and add sugar to it.  Put them in the top of a double boiler so that you heat them gently.  You want to heat them until you can no longer feel the sugar.  Either stick your finger in (perfectly clean thank you) and rub it with your thumb to see if you feel any crunch or taste it to see if you taste any crunch. 
When it's not crunchy anymore then put the mixture in a deep narrow bowl of a stand mixer.  A hand held mixer will not work for this recipe and that's because they just don't have the power to whip for as long and as fast as you need.

Start the mixer on the lowest speed and gradually raise the speed as the mixture gets thicker and stiffer.

Continue to whip until thick and you get very stiff peaks when you raise the balloon whip.

Spread on your pie and make sure you spread it all the way to the crust to completely seal it all in and also to make sure that it doesn't shrink. 

TA-DA!!!  Finished...look at those prudy peaks.  Now just brown them by putting the whole pie in the oven with the broiler on or do like I do...get a portable propane torch...my husband has one for doing various things and I use it to put the browning on my pie. 

 

The Dream

Ever since my mother died and now recently my father I have had people say to me, "Well, you know they are looking down on you and are around you all the time so be comforted by that fact." 
Wonderful thoughts if I felt that way but I do not.  I'm not trying to be negative here, that is just not my experience. 
I would have thought if anyone would have felt my mother's presence then it would have been my sister.  She spent more time with mom than anyone of us kids.  That was because she was the one to have children first and she lived closer to her physically than the rest of us.  But alass my sister doesn't feel her presence either.  Not that she or I for that matter would not like to, it's just that that has not been our experience.
About 6 months after mother had died, I had a dream.  I was at my parents house (in the dream) and I walked into the TV room where my father was watching TV sitting in his favorite chair.  I said Hello and where is mom.  Daddy said, "She's back in the sewing room but she's coming up the hallway."  It was in the next instant that I saw my mom.  I said, "Hi Mom, you are looking really well!"  And she said, "I feel really well!".  And we embraced and it was so real.  It lasted for what seemed like 5 minutes but I could feel her arms around me and it was a wonderful feeling.  And I also felt this sense of peace come over me.  I've not had another dream about her. 
Flash forward to a couple of nights ago...just a bit over 6 months since my father passed.  I had a dream.  This time it took place in a small restaurant...a pizza joint.  Pizza was a favorite food with my dad and we shared a lot of pepperioni pizza's over the years.  I didn't really recognize the restaurant but that didn't matter because I knew I was there to see my dad..and there he was, in the middle of the room.  I walked over to his table and he got up and we embraced.  It wasn't as real feeling as the one with my mom but it was there.  I remarked to him how good he looked.  He had put on weight and there were no bruises on his body.  Because of the type of cancer that he had he looked like someone had beaten the crap out of him all the time.  And then I remember thinking that this wasn't real and poof...the dream was over. 
I think about these two incidents and I wonder to myself about the human mind.  Is this how we cope with what is the un-copeable?  
I don't have the answers, probably never will have them but they do comfort me in some strange way.