NEW TO-DO'S

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IT'S DEBATABLE

Watching the deer enjoying their usual sunrise smorgasbord - my yard - I was reminded of an assignment we had in my college speech class. We were told to pick from amongst a list of hot issues, then we had to write one paper touting the pro side, another for the anti side, and finally, we had to chose a side for ourselves and give a speech that would convince everyone to support our stance. One guy chose the issue of hunting, and I chose to discuss whether or not having access to birth control pills was making young women more promiscuous.

Hunter Guy launched a very impassioned argument supporting his belief that, due to loss of habitat and overpopulation, hunters were actually doing the deer a favor by saving them from a life of starvation. It made perfect sense, but still...I had to wonder. So, when it came time for Q&A, I raised my hand. "That's a very good argument," I said, "but one thing confuses me. Are you saying that, as you pull the trigger, the thought that's actually going through your head is 'I'm sorry little deer, I'm only doing this for your own good,' rather than 'Hot Damn! Right between the eyes, Suckah!' ?" At least he had the decency to blush and stammer.

Oh, and as for my speech, I said that though it was true that the number of teen pregnancies had climbed steadily in recent years, it was my belief that the girls getting pregnant were probably not on the pill, and perhaps it was something else that was making them so promiscuous. Or, maybe, teenagers have always had sex, and it's just that they are no longer going to such extremes to hide the results. I got an A.

Of course, that was back in the good ol' days, when married couples on TV still slept in twin beds. Maybe I should do a paper now, on whether the media has made kids more promiscuous. I think I might have to argue in favor of it, this time!

Don't forget to leave a comment between now and the wee hours of Monday morning, to be included in this month's big give-away!

P.S. Many thanks to wortblog.blogspot.com for the above image.

WHAT'S IN YOUR PANTRY?

I've been thinking a lot about pantries lately. I know! Weird, huh?

We always used to tease my mom for having so much food in her pantry - especially when we were teenagers, since by that time, she had pretty much given up cooking. I guess it was a hold-over from the depression era, a security blanket of sorts. She used to tell us that the Mormons all kept about a year's worth of food in their pantries, so that if there was ever a disaster, they'd be the ones most likely to survive. I thought it was a bunch of hooey, until a friend of mine bought a house from a Mormon family, and I saw the size of her new pantry!

No one in my immediate family ever grew their own food, nor did any of my grandparents, so the idea of having pantry shelves lined with jewel-colored mason jars was very foreign and exotic to me. Over the years I have had several friends who gifted me with jars of their own preserves, but I could never bring myself to break the seal - I just loved gazing upon them way too much! I kept them out on the counter, or on a windowsill, where I could enjoy the stained-glass effect of sun shining through their rich colors, which of course, only hastened their demise.

Now, thanks to all of the blogs I read about dealing with peak oil and climate change, the subject of pantries is cropping up again. These people are not survivalists. They are not out there stockpiling weapons. They just have enough common sense to realize that it's better to be as self-sufficient as possible. We cannot rely on a system that ships food and other necessities from the far corners of the earth, because that system is not sustainable. We've already seen how easily a glitch in the system can occur, each time there is any kind of natural disaster. Lets talk about hurricanes, since I spent many years on the Gulf Coast, and have some familiarity with those. Oh, I know, if you are forced to evacuate your home, a fat lot of good it does you to have a well-stocked pantry. But what if you were amongst the thousands in the peripheral areas, who were without power for weeks, and all of the restaurants and grocery stores were locked up tight? If you didn't have anything left in your pantry, and your babies were crying, wouldn't you be tempted to break a few windows?

I am not a person who flies off the handle, or goes into a panic at the drop of a hat, but I did watch that TV series Jericho, and I saw what happened when the system broke down completely. The only thing that really mattered was being able to feed one's family and keep them safe. Now I am seeing what is happening with this swine flu scare, and it's got me thinking that there may come a time when it's better to just stay snug in my own little home for a while, and not be running into town every day, to mix and mingle with the masses. I'm thinking, maybe the time has come to have a well-stocked pantry. Like Mom's.

P.S. Don't forget to leave a comment, if you wish to be included in Sunday morning's give-away!

P.P.S. Many thanks to blogs.timesunion.com for the first image above, and to treehugger.com for the other two.

SPREAD THE WORD!

Exciting things are ahappenin' at The Bountiful Sprout, and I need your help to get the word out. Feel free to copy this poster, link to it, or I can even send you a pdf attachment for e-mailing. Should be a fun time for the whole family, with live music, tasty eats, face painting and a movie premier. Y'all come! (click image to enlarge)

P.S. Don't forget to leave a comment, for a chance at that "major award"!

TIME FOR ANOTHER MAJOR AWARD!

My apologies to you all! Things got a little crazy here last week, and I completely forgot to announce our next book give away.

What can I say about this next book, other than it epitomizes everything I felt when I repurposed the term seasonality to mean living one's life according to the seasons, and made it my personal mantra. The author obviously feels about her home, just the way I feel about this one, and I intend to stencil one of her quotes above my kitchen windows - "Here I have that most precious gift - time!" In case you haven't guessed, this book takes place in Italy, and there are some important lessons to be learned here. Did you know that during the age of the Roman Empire, agriculture in Italy consisted of huge, corporate, slave-driven operations, which forced out virtually all of the small farms? Sound familiar? Lucky for us, when the empire crashed and burned, its citified citizens decided to head for the hills, and returned to the business of feeding their families, growing their own food and becoming self-sufficient, using what was in season and available locally, and discovering the taste of place - just as many of us are trying to do today.

Even if you've already read this one, don't miss out on the chance to enjoy it again. And remember, it doesn't matter if you've won one of my drawings before - you are still eligible. Just leave a comment any time between now and Saturday night, and I will drop your name in the hat. Good luck!

SIS-TERS, SIS-TERS, NEVER WERE THERE MORE DEVOTED SISTERS!

Woke up the other morning thinking about how, as we age, not only do we lose flexibility in our joints, but also in our attitudes, and in our ability or willingness to adapt to the needs of the group. In a way that's good, because you can't go through your entire life being a doormat for everyone around you. On the other hand, our family get-togethers are really starting to suck.

My sisters and I used to love going on a T.A.I.R. - Thomas Annual Inspirational Retreat. We have a younger brother too, whom we all worship and adore, but believe me when I tell you that he was quite grateful to be left out of these excursions. They were our version of the girl's getaway, and were such a blast in our younger days. Then gradually, over the years, they became less and less fun, as we became less and less agreeable. Two of us like antiquing, the other doesn't. The two of them love outlet malls, I hate them. I am crazy about gardening stuff, but they want nothing to do with it, etc. Eventually it got to the point where we couldn't even agree on a place to go, much less what we would do after we arrived.

Some might see this as a sad development - something that needs to be rectified. I see it as the natural course of things. Our family has grown over the years. We have each married, had kids, the kids have grown up, some of them are married. Of course it is more difficult to get everyone to agree on something! Then there is the fact that we used to be one small family, circled around the nucleus that was my parents. Now that one of them is gone, and the other probably wont be around too much longer, we are going through something akin to cell division - dividing into four new familial pods, with those of us who were once the children, now becoming the nuclei.

The gradual distancing that my siblings and I have undergone over the years was probably a natural defense mechanism, set in place to make this division process less painful. It happened to our parents and their siblings, once our grandparents were gone, and I'm sure it will happen again when we are gone. It's only natural. But, still... I can't help feeling a little sad when I look back at the photos of some of our escapades, especially those taken on our very first T.A.I.R. - the one in San Antonio, where we are wearing those silly sombreros and those happy, happy smiles...

By the way, you did realize that we stuffed those waders we are wearing in the last photo with pillows, right?

HOUSTON, WE HAVE A SOLUTION

Found this hilarious/tragic video over on Redneck Mother that I just had to share with you. It made me want to laugh and cry all at the same time. My question is, how do the rest of us Texans - the ones who aren't out there stockpiling guns - let the world know that we aren't all idiots? (no matter what lengths Governor Goodhair goes to, to make it appear that way!)