The eclipse came and went without me. I spent that time cooking dinner and spending time with my mother. Mom still loves to cook and still does a little. My mother is all fired up for me to get a ten dollar box of okra at Brown's market this Friday. We'll come home, wash them and get them into the freezer. We go to get her shoes Friday morning and Browns is along the way.

I had every intention of going to the Indian Mounds to view the eclipse. They were giving away 50 eclipse glasses. Then it was 600 pairs. Then I knew what a crowd. It was that frustration. I should have gotten some of those protective glasses several weeks ago. I had planned to view this eclipse. Why didn't I do it.

So I watched the eclipse party in Illinois on television as the okra fried. My brother kept looking at me. That is what he does when he is expecting me to do something. It dawned on me to tell him since he was sick we were not going. No big whoop to him. The fact there was an eclipse did not register with him. I noticed my sister going outside to keep up with the eclipse. The biggest surprise is that it did not get dark. However, the air temperature outside went down by 5 degrees.

There will be another one in 2024. However, I will have to travel. It will be a big coincidence as I see it. I will content to be alive during the next one.

I can't say I missed the eclipse. The eclipse didn't miss me. We just both had our own schedules to keep. Cleaning up after dinner, I was glad I didn't follow my impulse to drive to the path of the total eclipse. It would have been a six hour round trip.

As my mother ages and with my sister having had a stroke, we are getting increasingly housebound. We get out to a restaurant about twice a month, and grocery shopping on Wednesday. I used to get out in the evening some and I need to make time to do that some more.

You cannot have your cake and eat it too. I would grieve about it but I am way past that. I spend a way too much time on the computer dawdling. When I see people sitting together scrolling on their phone, I feel like slapping my hands between them and say, "Be careful, life is going to pass you by as you sit there reading some insipid text." There are lots of eclipses that don't involve the sun and moon.

New week, the news has to get better. You can unfollow people but remain friends on Facebook. Right now my Facebook feed is about Genealogy and the local paper. I miss the days of the cat video sharathon.

The fact I have taken in a new stray dog puts me at ten dogs. I got too many dogs and the shelters are full this time of year. Living in a rural county, there is no animal control. The dogs are chasing something back into the woods. I'm hoping it is not another dog. They are cutting the pines down on the property behind me. Maybe it is a deer.

There are tons of chicken trucks delivering birds to the chicken processing plant nearby. My mom and I discuss the urge to set them all free. We had chicken last night for supper. So, I am a hypocrite. We also drive by unkempt grape vines and have the urge to start pruning them.

I've done my first binge watching of a television program. It was Orange is the New Black. I asked my sister if something was in the book. It turns out the book was about 200 pages long. I watched all five seasons this past week. I will say as the seasons progressed, they got duller.

I'm glad I caught them at one time. What cliffhangers, and the characters are very endearing. The bad, bad guys are awful and all three worst got killed. It was supposed to be dramedy. However, the comedy was not real strong for me. It had a more surreal quality. There are some things that I know are supposed to be funny; they just don't strike me that way.

It is not realistic in that all of the prisoners are swell folks deep down inside. All of their meanness is due to bad things in their lives. I used to subscribe to that notion but it is not always true. Some people are plain mean. Evil exists.

The character Poussy is unfairly killed by a guard in a crackdown on prisoner rebellion. That guard goes into a deep dark soul searching depression over the incident. I can see where something like that can eat at your soul. However, most people go for self preservation.

It is a show that is best enjoyed by not thinking too hard. It is pretty ham handed over the injustices of the prison system. They also go overboard with the lesbian content. There is a a lot of soft core porn inserted in shows. I fast forwarded through some; but, some serious dialog happened during the scenes like people discuss the vagaries of life during sex.

Disney movies actually make more money than any other type. Orange is the new black is not Disney material though. Orange is the New Black is about as realistic as a Disney movie.

The main character Piper Chapman is not a likeable character. I loved the characters they created. There was Flaca and Maritza who represent youth and innocence. There are the mothers, the hoodlums, the skinheads, people divided by race with the elderly forming their own group.

A 79 year old inmate plans to stab a really mean and vicious inmate who has caused a lot of problems. She stabs and kills another inmate in that she doesn't wear her glasses because they make her nose look big. Just a reminder that the gals may look harmless but they might not be.

A sad part was a woman with dementia is given a compassionate release. She is taken to a bus station with a ticket. The woman obviously does not have the wits to get on the bus or go anywhere. It reminded me of a man who drowned in the Ocmulgee River about a year ago. He had signed himself out of an nursing home several months before and had been homeless.

It's a good show. It is not as good as the Sopranos. I watched the Sopranos long after the show had ended. It was as good as they said it was. I've tried to watch Breaking Bad. I can't get into it in that I can't buy into the premise of a nice man making meth to rescue his family from doom. I think his family can fend for themselves after his death from cancer. And good people don't make things that will destroy other people and their families.

I am still watching the news. I'm taking a break from thinking about the news. They have started the Civil War back up again. We as a nation are in la la land when the most current thing in the news is something that ended in 152 years ago. But I do pray for reason. I read an article about what Andrew Young had to say about current events. It is a shame we don't hear more reason in the world. But I do thank God that we have had people like Andrew Young to lead and there are younger people leading the world with reason.

Andrew Young's statements in the Atlanta Journal.

I'm one of those people who is actually neutral about the statues. Time will be taking quite a few down soon. There is no fight like the one a family can have. What I wish people could take from the civil war is such a huge price in lives and misery was exacted from the War Between the States.  We should all take a step back from the noise and seek reason.

This letter from a civil war soldier should give us all pause to stop and think.

In God we Trust, everyone else pays cash.

I taught a Russian child whose parents and he were living in Canada. When he was returning to the USSR which was Russia at that time, I put my arm around his shoulder like I would any other kid and wished him a safe trip and a happy life. His doubtful eyes are in my memory. He is one of the children I wonder what happened to them.

That particular child could be difficult. The guidance counselor could calm him down in a minute. She had a note he had written that he would not want his parents to see. The Canadian kids were kids. One time the Russian child challenged me in class.

The little Canucks thought we would have a regular USA versus Russia rivalry. I wound up giving the class a lecture that the disagreements between countries had no role in people not being able to get along. I guess not wanting another class lecture, the kid gave up. He was not that popular and getting a teacher from the South lecturing the class again was not the greatest mantle to wear.

(I was never a disciplinarian. I'm like my parents in that I believe in someone having free will. It's an old Baptist belief. My parent's were not missionary Baptists which most Baptist's are today. It's interesting how beliefs of Quakers and Puritans can reach their hands across centuries and affect us in the present. I went for control to teach class. But kids could have their opinion. When I taught at an evening school, I was careful in asking opinions. You did not always want to hear what a life hardened 17 year old had to say.)

Which leads me to a serious matter. People who underestimate that Russia is an enemy to the United States. I read one blog about the Christian nature of Russia and how the blogger prays for Putin. She looks forward to hearing his Christian message.

As a former KGB agent, I doubt Vladimir Putin has a good message for the United States. Putin may be a practicing Christian. But we know how all of us interpret the message and filter it through our own perspective of the world.

The United States has been the world's policeman for a long time. Small countries all over the world have petitioned the United States for help and many have gotten that help.

If the United States loses it's credibility and leadership, there will be vacuum to fill. Emmanual Macron, President of France and Angela Merkel of Germany have been attempting to fill that gap.  It is inevitable the the United States and Western Europe will lose leadership of the world. But I do not anticipate the coldness and callousness of Russia and China.

In China there is a special uncontaminated food and water supply for their oligarchs. I can't imagine the Flint, Michigan water crisis becoming the norm in the United States.

I listened to Boris Johnson speaking to the Australian media. Johnson pointed out that the actions of the United States are stable although the rhetoric appears destabilizing. Boris Johnson is a conservative MP who was born on the Upper East Side of New York City and an architect of the Brexit.

Boris Johnson's quote My chances of being PM are about as good as the chances of finding Elvis on Mars, or my being reincarnated as an olive. summarizes my opinion of thinking that Putin is our friend and has our best interests at heart. Yeah, pray for him, pray for your enemies. The Bible admonishes us to do so. But the Bible does not direct us to deceived by our enemies.

The business of politics is beyond the scope of most of us. It is an intellect honed by fire. I am not that smart and neither are most people or you. Trump's true weakness is he has lived in a world of privilege where people do exactly what he says. Despite what his "hardcore" followers want, we live in a democracy not a dictatorship. There is a dimension of the "Art of the Deal" that Trump will need to acquire if he wants to govern effectively.

What is interesting to me is that most people are in agreement about certain items but can have different political ideologies. We've become tribal in our politics. Actually, it is our nature handed down over the centuries to us. Some of the lies and/or propaganda used during the American Revolution are surprisingly modern in tone. I'll dig my favorite book up and share a few next week. The book is the American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America by Colin Woodard

I am a Christian and an American. As an American, I believe we all have a right to serve God in the way we want. I am not afraid of someone having a different belief system as myself. I want the right to believe as I wish. Quite frankly, so many people speaking the mind of God are actually speaking their mind and unaware. In some cases, they are aware and in my belief system they have a lot to fear when they meet the Almighty.

It doesn't take Einstein to know what my message is. The old Soviet Union is the United States enemy. Russia is not concerned with our welfare. They would like the United States to be weak so they can control more of the world. Putin is no one's friend, not even Russia. He squashes political dissent. You may think he agrees with your values. Think again, he is a trained KGB agent. Once he gets what he wants, the heck with you.

What made me aggravated to write this post are the sonic attacks on embassy personnel in Cuba. The cold war has only thawed. Why is North Korea threatening? They perceive as being weak.

When I lived in Canada, I met all walks of life. The frustration of sleeping beside an elephant was how they felt about sharing a border with the United States. A friend shared this article written in 1973 at the close of the Vietnam war. Our country was torn by discord. We are torn again. But the American people have a promise to keep and I hope we keep it.

That song is driving me crazy.

My tour of hell yesterday was not painful. We only went to one store. The new tradition of eating a Chick Fil A sandwich before we go in the store not only saves me from cooking dinner but takes a bite out of the shopping. Except for two packs of strawberries, my mother did not purchase a lot of what we cannot possibly eat. That was my job.

My sister had an appointment with the eye doctor. Riding into town, I was bee bopping to a Tom T. Hall tune on Willie's Roadhouse. I love Sirius radio. Then all of a sudden, the DJ starts talking and he keeps talking and then he says, "If you want to hear my opinion, It was like turn the channel please.  And this is why with all the politics, you really don't want to put your opinion on Facebook. Opinions can be very very very borrrrrinnnnnng. Like a bolt of lightning, I got the message.

I've been reading "Story Grid" by Shawn Coyne. It has been interesting; but, I haven't got past the part of the sales pitch. What is it writing books. Why do they persist in spending the first part of the book about why you need to take them serious. Why else would I be reading the dang book.

I've also been reading some cozy mysteries by Sheila Hudson.

My favorite radio station on Sirius is Willie's Roadhouse. I would not listen to country music with my dad as a teenager. Now I love that music. I remember dad liking Tom T. Hall. Man what a long list of songs and ballads he sang. This is the one that played yesterday. It has a jolly sound.



Tonight I go to a Marty Stuart performance. I've seen him before and he is a great showman.

This Tom T. Hall song was released in 1972. As the Bible says, "There is nothing new under the sun." I like the King James version of the Bible. The old language is what I grew up reading and still enjoy.

Ecclesiastes 1:9King James Version

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

Making a Peach Cobbler

There are two types of cobblers.

One cobbler is made with fruit stewed in the bottom with a layer of biscuits on top. I bet a layer of yeast rolls would be good. I don't know if the bottom of the dough would cook enough. But how many people make yeast dough nowadays.

What makes a good biscuit is the type of flour you use. There is bread flour which is heavier with a higher protein content. The protein makes more gluten. A high protein flour makes a denser bread which is not good when you want a light fluffy biscuit.

A low protein, all purpose flour like White Lily makes a good biscuit. How do you make a biscuit? A hot oven helps. I cook biscuits at about 425 degrees. I purchase self rising flour. You can use plain flour but you have to add 1/4 teaspoon of salt and 1 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder for each cup of flour.

The next big trick with biscuit dough is you have to beat it by hand with a strong fork until the dough pulls together. It's that gluten thing going on. Once that happens you can pat your dough on a floured surface and cut biscuits to the shape you desire.

I have an old orange juice can my mother used when I was a kid. Frozen orange juice hasn't come in a can for at least 40 to 50 years. I shudder to think someone will just chunk it one day. Lately I drop biscuit dough in a muffin tin I have sprayed with PAM which brings me back to what you put into biscuit dough.

I use about 2 heaping cups of flour. If we don't eat all the biscuits, the dogs will. I put some oil in. I might drizzle some olive oil or cut in some softened butter into the flour. Maybe 2 to 4 tablespoons of butter but about 1 to 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Some people use shortening for the oil and some add a bit of sugar. I don't use sugar.

Then I add milk or buttermilk to the flour and stir vigorously until the dough pulls. If you get it too soupy, it makes a better muffin biscuit. You can add more flour if you want to roll the dough out. Buttermilk makes a lighter biscuit in that the acid it contains reacts with the baking powder to produce a gas. Self rising flour already contains salt and baking powder.

For a cobbler with biscuits on top, you want a dough you can roll out. But you don't want a stiff dough or you will have those legendary hard as a rock biscuit. Dense dough makes dense bread. You can add sugar to the biscuit mix. You do that before you add the liquid. Generally the fruit below is well sweetened.

I use this sort of  biscuit for fruit that will not maintain it's shape. An example would be blackberries, I would create a stew or jam of the berries and add sugar. Then drop biscuit dough on top. You can cut the biscuits and push them together or drop biscuit dough on the top.

The more you reshape dough and roll it in more flower, the more that dough will create a lousy biscuit. If you hate to waste the scrapes. Put the scraps in a biscuit shaped pile on the baking pan and cook them that way. I always just drop biscuit dough on top for a cobbler and use a glass baking dish. I don't like the metal taste food can acquire in a metal baking dish.

The second type of cobbler has a layer of fruit with a liquid dough poured over it. Apples and peaches are good fruits for this. Layer sliced fruit on the pan. Season with cinnamon or other spices you like. Nuts and raisins are good on the apples. You can put pats of butter on the fruit if you like the taste of butter a lot. It is good without butter. I use PAM on the glass pan before I place the fruit in.

You have a choice. Sprinkle sugar or sweetener like Splenda on the fruit. I don't use a lot of sugar. I get a lot of compliments on my baked goods. I halve the amount of sugar in everything. Sugar and salt are used heavily in processed foods and restaurant food to hide the inferior quality of the food being served. Plus the more salt and sugar you eat, the less you can taste it. Have you ever noticed smokers can eat the hottest salsa?

The dough is 1 part milk to 1 part self rising flour. That is 1 cup of milk to 1 cup of flour or 2 cups of milk to 2 cups of flour. I add 1/2 part sugar. You may want to make sugar 1 part.

My way is 1/2 cup sugar, 1 cup milk and 1 cup self rising flour.

I cook my cobbler in a 400 degree oven. For biscuits on top, I cook it until the biscuits have browned. For the soupy dough, I cook it about 25 to 30 minutes.

Anyway, the Elberta peaches are in this week and we are enjoying them.

How do you make your cobbler, biscuits on top or with the soupy dough bread? Or do you make a pie instead?

What Southern Heritage is.

Southern heritage is not "The South will rise again" nonsense. It is not an argument that the war was over state's rights and not slavery. The civil war was over slavery. State's rights was a roundabout way of people protecting a free workforce. How well the slaves were treated was dependent upon the people that owned them.

Only 1 percent of white southerners owned slaves. A large slave owner named Pierce Butler had 436 people auctioned to settle debts. It was a horrible breakup of families. Large slave owners often lived in large cities like Philadelphia or New York to enjoy their affluence and culture. Some large slave owners lived on large tracts of land with their slaves and family. Some slave owners owned two to fifteen slaves.

There is nothing good to say about the institution of slavery.

If slavery were legal today, you know there would be people who would own slaves who would justify their actions. Pretty much like someone who has a very profitable business and pays their workers minimum wage. Or someone getting an au pair who helps with a family but is to be paid and have free time being used as a 24/7 childcare helper.

What is as bad as slavery is the prejudice African Americans have had to endure. It is 2017 and the problem is still with us.

But Southern heritage is my family. I had ancestors that fought on both sides of the civil war. I had one branch that received reparations in that they were Union sympathizers that lived in middle Tennessee. However, the bulk served for the Confederacy.

I remember my dad telling my brother before he went to Vietnam that you don't want to lose a war. His answer was based on his experiences in Germany after World War II. His answer was based on grandfathers who served in the Confederate Forces. His answer was based on family deported from England by Cromwell for supporting the bonnie Prince Charles during the turbulent 1600s.

Men were expected to enlist and serve to do their part during the civil war. I came across this letter in doing genealogy research. If I am related to this man, it is most distant. But his letter shares the pathos of the common soldier during the civil war. And this is my heritage.

I do this in memory of my great great grandfathers Simon Bennett and Big John McDuffie. They served in the Confederate Militia. Simon Bennett in a South Carolina Militia and John McDuffie in a Georgia unit. This is my heritage. Both men were not perfect. But they were honorable men and deserve respect.

The Bennett's never owned slaves. The McDuffies did. The civil war alienated people much like today's politics. I don't know if it was the McDuffies or the Bennetts where this story originated. The Southern soldier who was on his deathbed refused to meet with his brother who had fought for the Union.

The customs and treatment of African Americans of that era do not deserve respect. Nor does the class system that permeated the South deserve respect. Both are abominations of the human spirit.

But the men who served and the families that suffered during the Civil War lived through difficult times. I honor them. This is my Southern heritage.

King Richard Sellers died of typhoid fever in June of 1864. He had two brothers who died during the war. Another brother disappeared during the Civil War.  Snipped from  https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Sellers-141

The Confederate battle flag is a difficult topic. To me, it is a symbol of the South. To African Americans it is of oppression and slavery. Since 90 percent of the African American population was enslaved before the civil war, I see their side. As an American, I have to stand with them to oppose oppression.

The battle for the Confederate battle flag was lost when hate groups began to use it.

Interesting enough, people outside the South have begun to use the flag to state rebelliousness. I was walking my dogs yesterday evening and thought of this anomaly when the thought emerged that in say twenty years, African american youths might start waving the Confederate flag. Much like Muslim teenagers aggravating their parents by wearing a burka.

Hard to believe I know. But nothing is as queer as folks. But never underestimate a new generations redefining who we are as a culture. I've gotten older and seen changes happen I never thought would happen. I just hope we become a more generous, kind culture.

One thing true about the American people, we don't do anything halfheartedly.

Who let the dogs out?

My chi's had their fur all up and Jobelle came back squawking in fear. I stepped out hoping we were not running from a rabid fox or coyote or armadillo. It was a large yellow puppy much bigger than them.

You just can't leave a baby to fend for itself. He arrived July 2nd. I thought it might be fireworks that sent him running from where he came. He has since doubled in size and is turning red. Remarkably friendly and wanting to be a part of the pack, I'll have to let my hostile chi Boduke run with him and let them settle the score. I don't want the score settled when Little Red becomes full sized.

There is an animal rescue that will post the animals I have found. This is convenient in that maybe it will lessen the number of dogs dumped on this road. Two different neighbors shoot the dogs that are dumped. One might enjoy it. The other one gets angry doing it. You can't take care of every dog that is dumped. Another man has about 30 dogs. I don't like something defenseless to go hungry; but, Ten is my max.

Fortunately, I have not had to start shooting dogs. I want to get some chickens, and we eat those chickens. My mother and sister don't think I can kill a chicken. Well maybe they are right. But I would still like to get some chickens.

Little Red looks like he is mostly Golden Retriever which is a wonderful dog. Dogs earn their keep. No one sneaks up on this house. I dare say we are low on the list of home invaders. Who wants to deal with a pack of dogs in the house. But I don't plan to go for the full thirty.

The chi's are therapy dogs in their own way. Louise the pitbull is my therapy dog.

I came across prompts for summer and remembrances of summer camp was offered.

As a girl scout, I did a lot of hiking and camping. I would say girl scouts instilled a lot of my love of outdoors; but, my family life was more responsible. We always went berry picking as a kid. My grandmother lived in the country. I remember chasing fireflies in tall weeds covered in flowers. Bringing a bunch to my mother, mom and grandma both start hollering to not bring those weeds in. They were covered with bugs.

I remember a pack of wild dogs approached my family as were walking back from picking blackberries close to the Echeconnee Creek. My dad, mother and siblings were close to the car and hopped in. I was straggling, and we were parked on a dirt road on a hill. The road had washed into deep gullies. My dad yelled run and he backed that car close to the edge of a rut. I don't know how I got in the car so fast. I'm sure one of my older brothers yanked me in while another one shut the door. The car was surrounded. Dad floored it and we were out of there with plenty of berries to make pie.

My parents had two sets of kids. There is me the lone female with three brothers. I was so spoiled in that my dad favored me. I was a regular five year old tyrant. Those were the days. I have two sisters who were born later. They always informed me how gross I was. Growing up with brothers and a neighborhood filled with boys, I was a major tomboy. I came by those tomboy ways honestly. My mother was one. My grandmother Ada Prestwood was one. Grandma lost her first baby due to jumping over a turf row.

In the early 1990s, my older brother Gene's wife threw him out of the house, and he was laid off later that week. He came to stay with me in the Atlanta area. Atlanta is an oasis of jobs for people in Georgia. Long story short, I cooked chili one night and we both had a gas attack later that evening and we reminisced about all the "fart" jokes. I knew why I was gross. It was my brother's fault.

My brother found a job within a day of coming to my house in Atlanta. He has since retired and lives outside Atlanta. He plans to move down here one down. But it is hard to move and I don't know if he has it in him to get it done. Plus he has a dog that is scared to ride in a car. He plans to let Miss 14 year old Sadie live out her days and then get serious about moving.