Playing Pioneer in the Cold

It’s been a long time since it has been this cold in rural Southwest Alabama. It has been over 20 years since that Christmas Day when it went from 78 on Christmas Eve to 5 degrees in the morning. For over a week, it’s been really cold here. We have had overnight temperatures as low as 11 degrees. That is not where we are playing pioneer. It is because our little town has been without water for a week. The official word is that there are multiple reasons. The native are getting restless, also for multiple reasons: they can’t bath, flush toilets or send the children to school. There are a few who still have water, but they are not making a big deal of it – jealousy is a bad thing when it is from those you normally know and love. For those still with water, they have been officially informed to not drink the water unless they boil it for one minute first.

Many of us are not good sports about it. I went to the library to return some books. I figured more people are reading by the fireside these days and might need the books. A normally friendly librarian was downright surly. She said she didn’t have any water.

Last night I got thirst during the night and went scouting around for something to drink. I thought my bottle of vitamin water would be perfect, but I could get the top off. I drank some bottled green tea, which may be why I was awake for hours.

I had a group of church ladies over last week for soup. I didn’t have any water, which is a key ingredient in soup. I had already soaked the beans for 15 bean soup, so I just added 2 cans of chicken broth and a can of tomato sauce. It was the best I ever made. I understand now why all the famous chefs use stock in their soups because it does taste delicious. I didn’t have either the time or the inclination to simmer meat and vegetables for hours to make the soup, but on another less harried occasion, with 2 days to spare, I might. The other soup I made was potato. I used a milk based white sauce (béchamel, to those who know the difference) and thinned it with the same chicken broth. Yep, I had a cupboard full because I was visiting relatives around Christmas and didn’t use up my supply. It, too, turned out well. Soup is the perfect cold weather food and great for entertaining because it stretches easily. Just add another can of chicken broth!

We all have bathtubs full of water if we are lucky. We don’t bathe in it, just use it for flushing. Indoor plumbing is a wonderful thing. I can’t imagine having to get up and run down the path to the outhouse when nature called. I certainly would have put a slop jar in the bedroom if it came to that. Here in rural Southwest Alabama, many of our parents and all of our grandparents had the experience of using outhouses at some point in their lives. It certainly made them closer to nature. Today, many of us can empathize with the ancestors – the real pioneers. When we see a movie about the past, we see the candles and kerosene lamps, but never do we see the toilet facilities. The movies would not seem nearly so romantic with visible facilities.

What we are getting right now is a big dose of what it was like for our ancestors to survive. We do have certain advantages, though. We have paper plates to eat off of and throw away. We forget all about living ecologically green when we are in desperate times. None of us are desperate enough to go out in 20 degree weather and wash dishes in a pot of water and scrub them with sand and corncobs. We have bottles of water to guzzle after we exercise to stay fit. All our ancestors had to do was go about their daily lives to get their exercise. We have a better appreciation of how good we have it when we don’t have it for a few minutes.

I will have to close by saying that I don’t intend to move because of these brief hard times. For at least 6 months of the year, I can sit on my porch and be at peace with the world. Life is good in rural Southwest Alabama. It’s even better with soup made with stock (canned chicken broth is quite fine)!

WINTER IN RURAL SOUTHWEST ALABAMA

Well, at long last –winter has arrived. It is as cold here today as it is in Vermont. After sitting on the porch in December and reading my Christmas cards. Today, I am stoking the fireplace and sitting by the heater. There is just one catch – I am having a family party tonight and the pipes are frozen. There is no water. Thank goodness that I did my washing yesterday. I think clean underwear is important when you are giving a party. I did some other chores yesterday that will make me be able to go ahead with the party as planned. I soaked the beans for my 15 bean soup. In fact, I found out about the water being frozen when I started to put more water on the beans to cook. Fortunately, I am well provisioned in my pantry. I found 2 cans of chicken broth and one of tomato sauce that I used instead. It may be the best bean soup I ever made!

My menu is a choice of 15 Bean Soup with Conecuh Sausage or Potato Soup with Ham served with cornbread as the main course. Appetizers are Mexican Cheese Dip with Hamburger served with corn chips plus the wonderful okra chips from Fresh Market and Homemade Party Mix on the side. Dessert is a Chocolate Fondue with pound cake, flavored marshmallows and leftover Christmas cookies. Everything is hot and heavy. It will be in the teens tonight. We will drink wine and hot Fruit Punch. I’m calling this the Last Christmas Party. I wanted to do the party on Jan 6 because that is the last day of Christmas, but Wednesday night is church night in the rural south, so I made it one day sooner.

I spent the whole Christmas Holiday traveling, so I didn’t have a Christmas Party. I wanted to have a few people in before I HAD to take down my tree. My house has lots of red and green all year, but at Christmas, I add lots of velvet and sparkle. I wanted to give Christmas one last whirl. Tonight is it. I don’t care if I don’t have water. I just won’t tell anybody until they get here. It is really an adventure to plan a party without running water. We in rural Southwest Alabama have a pioneer spirit. Many of our parents didn’t get electricity until they were grown. My granddaddy had a battery powered radio to listen to the Grand Ole Oprey on, so all the neighbors came to his house on Saturday night to listen. He entertained without amenities and so can I.

I do know how to build a glorious fire in the fireplace. I learned by trial and error, with an often smoked up living room until I got the hang of it. Now I can build a blazing fire almost every time. The only catch to a roaring fire in the fireplace is that mine is in a wood burning heater in the living room. My house has 4 fireplaces, but when the second story was added to the house, the chimneys were knocked down to make way for progress. After I moved in, a hearth and wood heater were added. The reason that it was a heater and not a fireplace was because my roof is so steep, that the only place we could put a functional chimney was between the two front living room windows. It was narrow and would accommodate only a wood heater. Fortunately, we found one with a wide opening so we can see and enjoy the fire. Often in old houses, the placement of things seems funny. Usually there is a functional reason why. Just like the case of the party with no water, we just make do with what we have, take it in stride and move on. Happy New Year!

Decorating for Christmas

I hear so many people saying right after Thanksgiving “Why are people decorating so early for Christmas?” Now that I am getting older, I begin to understand why. When you reach 50, it seems like Christmas starts coming every three months because time is passing so fast. It’s almost like if we don’t catch it when it comes by, we will miss it all together.

I have always loved Christmas. I love the color. I love the ceremony. I love the festivities I love  the celebration. I never understood the people who were too busy to savor it. I do understand how working parents are stressed. I remember the days of hunting that one certain most popular of the season toy. That was when I wished there really was a Santa Claus so he could do all the looking for the Cabbage Patch doll. 

Now that the children are grown and gone, I enjoy the season more. I still decorate like there are toddlers all over the place. I didn’t realize what a repertoire of decorations I had accumulated over the years until I went into the attic and started looking for them. I found things I had forgotten about and things I swear, I never saw before.

I went to a big warehouse sale this year and got carried away with the bargains. I got things I still have to figure out where to use. Some of them I just passed on to others in hopes that they could figure out where to put them. I got 2 glitter covered twig wreaths that were marked $70 retail for $5 each. I had a hard time fitting them into my red, green and gold color scheme, but I finally figured out how to do it. I added a small glazed fruit and greens swag to the top half of them and tied it with the ribbons that made them match with everything else (which I also got at the sale).

I am not a hanger of outdoor lights. I am pretty clumsy with a ladder and can’t risk ruining my holiday with a sprained ankle or worse. I just festoon the door and its surroundings. I use lots of ribbons and color in my swage. The swags around the door are not as elaborate as last year, because it was too heavy and kept falling on my guests as they entered. That is not a good way to say “good will to men”.
I am a true southerner in that I like sparkle and slightly gaudy. Rural Southwest Alabama is in the heart of Dixie, and we keep Dixie in our hearts. We know we are different from the rest of the nation because we like more glamour and noise in our Christmas. There is nothing puritanical about our decorating = our politics maybe, but not our decorations. We are the colorful birds of plumage in our Christmas sweaters and our holiday decorations. As for myself, I love a glittery mantle. Since all my chimneys were knocked down when they finished the second story of my house, none of the mantles are functional. Therefore, I don’t have to worry about catching the house on fire from the greenery on the mantles. I don’t use real greenery, anyway, because I leave it up so long. It would be dead as a doornail by New Years.

I always leave my decorations up until January 6th. Somewhere in my ancestry there were Anglicans who celebrated Epiphany and early settlers who came down the Federal Road who called it “Old Christmas”. There must have been some Druids way up the line, too, because I am crazy about greenery. I do have some that is read, because nowhere else can you get that smell, but from real cedar? I left two bowls on the dining room mantle to be filled with holly and cedar. They’ll have to be fresh when company’s coming. I plan to have lots of company this holiday season. But I want it in small groups so we can sit and catch up on our visiting. I don’t plan to have a soirée’ that keeps me hopping too much to have fun at my own party! I consider (like the rest of the South) where 3 or more or gathered – it’s a party.