Captina Friends Cemetery

Standing on the northwest corner of the cemetery, the north being closest to the creek. The creek is down over the hill to the left. This is looking back east, towards Ohio SR 26.

On August 14, 2009, I set out to go Cemetery Hopping. I prepared in the weeks prior by entering several years of geneology correspondance into Family Tree Maker, and printing out geneology reports, going to the Belmont County Engineers website to find out who surrounding property owners were for private cemeteries, discussing places I was going and people I was looking for on geneology forums and on the phone, and by printing out maps and finding general whereabouts on a Belmont County, OH map. I had 3 cemeteries planned, but visited 5 total. Since it was prime haymaking day for my dear husband, Bruce, I took our 3 y/o, Eilidh with me. I fully expected her to self destruct early on, but instead, she had A BLAST. She even posed for me to introduce one long researched and long awaited CAPTINA FRIENDS CEMETERY, found very close to the corner of Captina Highway/SR 149 and SR 26, not very far south of Barnesville, OH. It is known in military records as the OLD BROWN CEMETERY or locally in more modern times by the family who most recently lived on the property known to the locals as the BENSON CEMETERY.

The entrance sits within sight of SR 149, with public access technically from SR 26 along the small power lines. However, I found a trailer sitting right on SR 26 with a "For Sale by Owner" sign in front. It appeared to be a hunting retreat for someone. Indeed, when I called the number on the sign, the owner lived in Akron. He said it included 74 acres, and he was asking $130,000. I wasn't in the market, but seeing as how I knew several people very interested in this cemetery, and seeing that it was an old Quaker site, it seemed a wonderful place for a Friends retreat, or for some Friend to own, just for its spiritual connection with a Meeting of the past.

There is a connection most people don't understand about many Quakers who still practice after the silence way of worship. They are sometimes spiritually bonded with the past, and the places in which that past took place. Captina Friends Meeting quit holding worship in 1836. My interest in it originally arose when my Methodist paternal grandmother left handwritten notes that one of her great aunts was married to a Smith in Captina Friends Meeting. My mother (other side of the family completely) is a Quaker, and I know of many, many Quaker Smiths through growing up being involved in Friends circles. One of my childhood playmates came from a line of them. Captina Friends Meeting records have been lost, to my understanding. Losing records is an unusual occurrence for Friends. They take notes, keep journals and pass down to their descendants notes on nearly everything.

The records may be found someday, but who knows where? They could be stored away in someone's attic, or in a back corner of an archive at a college like Swarthmore near Philadelphia, PA, or Guilford in North Carolina. I've known a few Quaker scholars on forums who frequent such places and find such suprises. Or they may be ruined and gone.

There were only about 6 legible stones in Captina Friends Cemetery. They were all but one military stones, which in a Friends Cemetery is not unusual, but their legibility in contrast to other grave markers was, indeed. At that point in history, prior to 1836, Friends did not use gravestones as we know them today, if they used markers at all. It was considered worldly. I remember hearing stories of graveyard trustees removing gravestones. I have to deduce that either the family or the military has thus placed these stones. One person who gave me directions to the cemetery was a veteran.

The stones were:

Wallace Reeves, COL 186th Ohio Inf

Milton Reeves, COL 129th Ohio Inf

S Hoopes 186th Ohio Inf

Mary Ellen (was all I could read)

J.R. & L. Catton, Died (illegible) 1819 possibly

Simeon Breech, Shot and Killed in a gunfight, birth, 23 Aug, 1782, death 30 May 1849

Abraham Gray, PVT, 3 Regt, Ulster County Militia, Rev. War, 1754, 1846 (newest stone)

I did about 10 hours of looking-up today. Samuel Hoopes was mustered for the Civil War at age 22 on 2/21/1865, and was killed 3/23/1865 in Louisville, KY.

Simeon Breech was in a gunfight as law enforcement between two people, as the story goes, and neither one survived.

Abraham Gray was born to Louis M. and Loretta Marie Ann Gray in NY; married Sheryl Marie (uk last name) and had children John, Peter 18 Jun 1787 Ulster County, Benjamin 1788 and Samuel 1791.

I could not find any information on the Catton, nor the two Reeves.

George Wetzel, Lewis Wetzel's father, was buried at the head of Captina Island which sits in the Ohio River near the mouth in April 1782 after being hit in the chest with a bullet during a hunting trip with his two sons. "That Dark and Bloody River," Allan W. Eckert.

The Battle of Captina, according to Martin Baker, took place in 1794, a full account which can be found at the website of a nearby bed&breakfast:

http://strattonhouse.com/index.php?section=history&content=31135103

Sometime after 1794 to 1836 spanned the possible existance of Captina Friends Meeting. That was about 40 years. Walking through this graveyard on a sunny, comfortable August day in 2009 gave me a spiritual feeling, a bond with my ancestors and relatives who may or may not have been buried there. You can't tell where the meetinghouse might have once stood. But ginseng grew at the base of one of the illegible gravestones, in defiance of its once massive harvest. It is a beautiful place. I hope that whomever the owner sells it to will appreciate its significance in the history of this area of Ohio.

East Finley Friends Cemetery, est. 1700

I've been depressed for 2 weeks. It is a milestone to make that statement because I tend to deny, even to myself, that I'm not coping well. The action was somewhat premeditated, somewhat whimsical. On my way home from work two days ago, I took the Claysville exit and decided to look for an old cemetery.

I had tried 2 0r 3 years ago without success. Since then I lost the directions. For a week, I've been looking for the directions. I finally resorted to calling an old coworker whose number I still had. When I first began working in Washington County in 2004, I was taken aback at how many people came into the hospital talking about "up by Quaker Hill," or "out by that old Quaker cemetery," or referred to a Quaker place of some sort. I was at a loss to find any Quakers, of which I am one. What happened to all of them? I had only dabbled a little into geneology at that time, but enough to know they had once populated that part of the state fairly thickly. Now there were virtually none.

Jimmy Carter's book, "The Hornets Nest," made me realize that Washington may have been a major crossroads from the South, once-upon-a-time. And then there was the day I decided to look straight back my maternal line. I ran directly into Agnes Childrey, the reknowned ancestor among Quakers who was kidnapped by Indians from a Quaker settlement in Georgia, raised by them, and then rescued by the man who would become her husband, and also my ancestor. It occurred to me that the Indians who kidnapped her were most likely the Creeks, from whom Bartram learned his New World botany.

Someone on a geneology group I belonged to asked a question, and I opened up my copy of Bill Taber's book, "The Eye of Faith," lovingly given to me by my parents when it was published, to find the answer. Bill's daughter is one of my best friends. There, in the back cover, was a map of meetings in western PA in the 1800's. The map had been there all along.

In 2004, this somewhat annoying coworker kept mixing me up with Mennonites. She and her friends went to Amish Country, and it made her think of me. I lent her "The Peaceable Kingdom," by Jan de Hartog, hoping to help her understand a little better. She never read it. But she came to work one day, telling me about this really old Quaker graveyard in East Findlay, which I came to discover was south of Claysville. Her husband had a friend who worked in the township garage, and knew where it was. She gave me directions. Some people came to care for it every year, but she didn't know who they were. They would cut trees and clean it up a little.

Two weeks ago now, my mother announced she was getting married again. I was already struggling with emotions about something else. I was truly happy for her. But what I didn't expect was to miss my father so much. I realized on about the 3rd day while searching frantically for these 2-years-lost graveyard directions that I was compensating for my grief by looking for my ancestors. I'd been stacking up papers and documents people had sent to me selflessly for just as long. One day I spent over 8 hours putting all that information into Family Tree Maker. I had lots of more important things to do, but could not draw myself away from geneology.

I gave up looking, finally, and called Linda. After yelling questions to her husband in the other room, she deduced that you followed East Finley Road until it ended and forked 3 ways, and you turned left. Then there was some road you went down with berry in the name - she thought maybe Strawberry. She said she'd ask her husband's friend for directions again. We chatted some more about our employer, coworkers, patients, pregnancies and breastfeeding, and said goodbye.

My depression was about 2 weeks ripe. On a whim after work on Tuesday, on my way home, I got off at the Claysville exit. No, I didn't have any directions other than what she told me over the phone. It was not entirely an intelligent thing to do. There was 1/4 tank of gas in my car. My cell phone had been shut off for nonpayment due to a $450 bill that takes too much explanation, but the point is, I couldn't call my husband to tell him I'd be late. I went on anyway. I turned right at the Sacred Heart Church in Washington - the one across the road from the Methodist Church, on old Route 40 as you're entering Claysville, PA. The road markers along the way said I was on East Finley Road. It wasn't quite dusk yet - around 7:30 in early August. It had rained earlier in the day and was a little moist and misty, but the air was clear. I cracked my windows a little and turned down the air, and put in a CD with Celtic music.

I drove, thinking I should turn off to the left somewhere. I had two years earlier, I thought. Did this road really dead end into 3 forks? It was too well-kept. I looked across the voluminous foothills of farms, thinking about the Quakers moving through and settling there, and wondering, "What place would they have liked to live and farm?" I asked my ancestors and God to guide me, and whispered a few prayers under my breath. It was a beautiful, soft, cool, humid evening after a long day at work. I took each curve slowly, in order to peer out and imagine what it may have looked like 100 or more years sooner. The stop sign came after about 3 1/2 miles, and I turned left. The marker said Pleasant Grove Road. I slowed down and read the markers as I passed each dirt road - Block House Road, Buckeye Road. Someone in an SUV was behind me. I came upon a parking area for a public hunting ground and pulled off. No Strawberry Roads yet.

I went on. Eventually, the road ended with a 2-way fork. There was a building that looked like a town hall or an old Grange building to the left of the fork, and a very clean graveyard directly across the fork with a lot of big, shiny stones and a statue of Mary prominent in the front. Not Quaker. Where did I go now? I decided to turn right, and said to myself, "You should just go back." Just past the right corner of the fork was a dirt road going steeply downhill to the right. The first letter was blackened on both sides. All I could read was "aspberry." My heart skipped a beat. I heard the stones crackle under my wheels as I turned down into a dirt road leading into the woods. I came to another dirt road. Raspberry seemed to cross it diagonally, so on I went. And then it dead ended into another fork, and this time there were no markers.

How silly of me. Dusk was advancing, but it wasn't very dark yet. I was in deep woods now, on a dirt road in remote southwestern PA. I thought, "If I turn right, this road may go back up to Pleasant Grove, and if it doesn't, I'll just turn around and go back the way I came." I drove a little ways, and I saw a chain link fence ahead with no associated buildings. It looked like a graveyard. There was a very tall tree in it, and it was surrounded with tall trees, and there was a sign. A feeling of excitement overwhelmed me. There was lots of parking room, so I pulled to the left, off the road next to the fence and read the sign. It said, "Quaker Cemetery, est. 1700." I was smiling, laughing, tickled with joy as I got out of the car. I opened the gate and went in. There was ivy everywhere. And sassafras trees and poplar trees to my chest, and nettles. And poison ivy. I don't normally get poison ivy, so that wasn't a deterrent. I squatted to look at a partially moss-covered gravestone, and couldn't read the inscription, so I ran my fingers along the letters. I don't remember what it said, just that touching the stone made me feel connected to the people who once made that their spiritual home. I looked around, trying to imagine a meetinghouse there. It could have been anyplace. It could have been where the roads were, or where the tall trees were. The woods were getting dark, and I remembered that there were bears in this part of PA. But I walked around the graveyard anyway. Some of the gravestones were sunken into the ground, and a few of the graves were too. One gravestone was sunken and right against the base of that tall tree, as if the roots had grown around the stone and pulled it down into the ground in a hug.

I thought, "If I fall into a grave, nobody will know where I am." But I kept walking around, wondering that some of the stones were very large and fancy for Quakers in the 1700's. Well, no. Quakers did not become particularly "plain" until the 1800s. Before that, some of them were quite wealthy and prominent. These were prominent farmers, coming up from the deep South, and in from the east, before the Revolutionary War, during the time of slavery and big plantations. They would have been wealthy. They would have known the Indians as friends or Friends; brothers and sisters in Christ, unlike the attitude of most settlers of that time. They were my people from a long, long time ago. Lost in the beautiful woods. They would have liked having ivy and nettles and sassafras growing on their graves.

I took in my fill of the sight, and the smell, and the sounds of the woods. Some big motor was running very far off in the distance, but I could not hear any cars or planes or people. It sounded like a big machine, like a shovel or bulldozer revving, and was very rare and intermittent. Otherwise, it was just very quiet woods. I got into my car, full of fresh air, and went back the way I came. I set the trip odometer each time I turned onto a new road, and jotted down the mileage.

My depression is gone. Ever since that moment, I have felt an indescribable feeling of happiness. I found a Friends Cemetery that is not even on Quaker maps.

Karma

Karma is the faint hope of those who have been taught to not take action on vindictive feelings. Most of my life I thought that people who counted on Karma were just misguided. It isn't that I thought they should take matters into their own hands - not that at all. I just didn't have much faith in "what comes around goes around," actually going around all by itself. Since I was well schooled in the attitude of non-getting-back, I usually sighed, moved on and resigned myself to being whooped.

But I've seen Karma come to pass enough times. I've come to believe in it, sort of. I've learned that some people really do test fate until it strikes them. One way I've seen this happen is in my employment situations. Every employer who has fired me has folded. Not that there are many, but it is true. I like to think that this is because I am a sort of litmus test person for business success. If an employer can't cope with my specific issues, they won't make it. I've never had to take any action in putting someone out of business. I also don't believe there is any Phantom of the Opera watching over me. I think the phenomena of closing businesses is a self-induced Karma of the employer.

There are also the nurses, doctors and politicians who are know-it-alls. They tend to know themselves right out of their jobs.

A few months ago, I wrote to a politician. After I sent the email, I reread it, and it sounded like a threat. I told them the same would happen to them as had happened to others in their shoes who didn't listen to me. It was a philosophical threat though. I had no intention of doing a thing to make anything bad happen to them. I was suprised afterwards that I had come to have that much faith in Karma.

The thing was, what I wrote was true, and I knew it.

Evidence

A towel that hangs in the bathroom was covered with bug debris and spider web bits. Yesterday it was clean. I wondered first if it had been dropped on the floor or dragged about the house and then hung back up. My husband and daughter wouldn't have done that. They would have thrown it in the hamper. My 3 year old is too short to hang it there. Bug debris? I looked up. There, above the toilet, was the light. It is an old-fashioned light with a glass dish that is held on by something that screws in at its base. There was a clear area, where some large bug had buzzed and scattered debris of previous bugs clean.

Two days ago I was startled by an ivory beetle buzzing around my bathroom, after I had gotten naked for the shower. I caught the beetle in a jar and identified it. It was of the ilk of the elm borer, for which purple bags hang about trees all through the midwest. The ivory beetle eats (and kills) hardwood trees. It was enormous, in comparison to the gnats, moths and mayflies that are found in my bathroom in the morning. I concluded it must be bad beetle season. I saw no beetles today, but the debris on my towel and my dislike for that ivory beetle convinced me that a bad beetle was the culprit of such an evil deed.

Evidence is a puzzle. We don't always come to the correct conclusions about what it means, but it takes us closer. We are natural borne hunters. We spent much more of our evolution looking for tracks in the woods than we did shopping for deals at grocery stores. We are hard-wired for curiosity. Perhaps that is why I find books like "Tracker" so engaging, and the nursing field and nursing theory so interesting at times.

My first nursing instructor traumatized me, but she also fascinated me. She could tell what was wrong with someone by looking at them. Painstakingly, she taught me these skills also.

It has come to amuse me when a patient - or an acquaintance - wonders how I know something about them. After 12 years of helping doctors figure it out, I've become fairly good at it. But like all clues, they don't always lead one to the correct conclusion. There are tricky situations that baffle even the smartest or most educated.

Still, a simple "head to toe assessment" done thoroughly can find a book of information about a person. Slightly jaundiced sclera and a bulging right upper abdomen are telltale signs that someone may like their beer, for instance. Trying to get an IV in someone with seemingly good veins, only to have them pop and bleed one after the other is sometimes a pretty good indicator that a person is on a steroid. Going to work is a daily puzzle. It is the craziest part of the day, those morning assessments, looking 5 people over, getting their vitals, writing it into the computer, and then sorting through the slue of doctors bombarding the nurse's station with the most pertinant finds of the day so they can order tests and treatments. It is maddening, but in a hunter-gatherer sort of way, it has come to be something like a fun board game. The object of the game is to get the person better and send them home.

The Examen

One of my favorite books of all time is called, "Sleeping With Bread, Holding What Gives You Life."

Click on the title, "The Examen" to be taken to the Google book version.

The book guides you to meditate for a short while each day on two things: what you are most grateful for, and what you are least grateful for. At points in my life when I've felt lost, or needing direction, doing this excercise for even a few days in a row has helped me immensely. When written down in journal form, the excercise can be gone back to at later dates to help regain focus.

Today I am most grateful for sleep and the freedom to rebound after working two 12-hour night shifts. I've not always had that freedom, nor the ability or peace to sleep. I've not always had someone understanding around to watch my children or take care of everything.

I am least grateful for my own forgetting to return a key that was lent to me at work last night. The key is an extra that opens the medication drawers in patient rooms on a particular unit. Work is a 45 minute drive in a direction I don't normally go unless I'm going there to work. It will be a 1 1/2 hour trip on my day off to return the key. If I don't return it until the next day I work, which is Tuesday, every nurse needing the extra key will be inconvenienced for 4 days. I have to take it back and spend the money on gas, or live with feeling guilty.

My gratefulness tells me that I've made life choices to put me in a position of more comfort. It is one of the more selfish gratefulnesses I've had, but it feels good to know that what I wanted at one time, something that seemed difficult to obtain, I now have. Gratefulness for me tends to center around time spent with my children, or making others feel good, or helping people, so today, what stands out is a little different. My ungratefulness tells me to pay more attention to small things so I don't end up feeling guilty.

This book was laying on the end table in the home of a person I considered a great teacher in my life. I was there for a meditation group, and picked it up while waiting for others to arrive. I liked it so much that I bought myself a copy. If I'd recommend one book to my friends and enemies alike, it would be this one.

Snow, Travel and Christmas

I have gained 40 pounds since becoming a nurse 11 years ago.

Last night we went to the local homeschool association's Christmas presentation. We weren't going to go, but one or more mothers asked my daughter to perform dances she learned with other teens for a Pride and Prejudice book study. Most, if not all the girls made their dresses or dresses were made for them. And it was the mothers who ran this show. My husband, our 2 y/o, my mother and a friend of my mother's went. My mother made the dress, and it was the fanciest of them all. Parents weren't allowed at the dinner of the book study, so this was our big and wonderful opportunity to see the kids dance in full 18th century garb.

I'm sort of the odd one out in that group. Now granted, all the homeschooling parents are a little odd, and each from the rest in their own ways. But I WORK. I have the utmost regard for women who stay home; but none of these homeschooling mothers carry such a demanding job ALSO. And I am divorced and remarried; have kept my maiden name, different from the names of my first 3 children, and both different from my husband and 4th child. And I am the primary income earner. We live on a farm. Compared to those women, I am very odd.

Lately I am tired all the time. The manager of our nursing unit told me recently that I look sad all the time. She doesn't know me very well. I'm just tired. Working full-time as a nurse on a unit where patients require some relatively intense care is draining. Driving to North Carolina 3 times in 1 1/2 months for 18 hour round trips on the few days I had off adds to the draining. Looking after in a weak sort of way, a 16 y/o's homeschooling, and helping care for a 2 y/o on top of all of this is draining even more. And topping off a weekend of bringing home 2 of my college son's friends for a week of Christmas break, with working a day shift, and ending the day with such a Christmas program, (and stopping at the store in between for a gift for the charity box at the door, and at the bank to find out why my ATM card didn't work at the gas station the day before - was a fluke I guess, cause it worked at the bank), was just, well, I went straight to bed when I got home, finally, after the program.

The 2 y/o went dressed in blue jeans, because somehow I forgot to do her laundry, and she ran out of dress clothes. (Did I mention I made pancakes and somehow got 7 teenagers up and off to Quaker Meeting the Sunday before the Monday of interest?...no I didn't mention that).

Yesterday, 3 of the 4 patients in my pod were VERY needy - feeding tubes, confusion, doting families with lots of questions,...and to watch a raised eyebrow or two at my 2 y/o's jeans just made me feel like, well, that was just too bad for them.

Several people commented that they were glad to see that I got back from NC alive. And I remembered, oh yes, there was snow. The program was cancelled last Thursday because of a terrible snow, and rescheduled for Monday. I took advantage of this and made an early start to NC, and got along south before the worst of the storm. Apparently this added to my oddity and was of central concern to many people!

Of all things for people to worry about me regarding. I think it is the chocholate. My feet hurt. I'd like some chocholate right now, in fact.

Goats in the September Garden

I have a confession to make. My goats obliterated my beautiful garden. Out of all that work, I got not one brussel sprout or kolarabi; not one green pepper. The squash bugs ate the rotting pumpkins. The ducks ate the tomatoes - I finally beat them to one that was changing color. The Jobs Tears fought for survival, but never got very tall before they were grazed again, and again.

There were some successes despite the goats. We got some tomatillos, cilantro and blessed thistle. We had a bumper crop of beets, and harvested a few carrots. We beat the goats to a few beans and some black Aztec corn. So it wasn't a total loss.

Next year, we hope to have a fence around the garden. This isn't a very good picture, but it gives the general idea. I gave up. It may be that Karma caught up with me for assuming I could go public with my garden. Things like that tend to happen to me - it is why I am sometimes afraid to succeed or brag about succeeding. Someone will find it bragging, and get me for it, somehow. This time, it was the goats!

Vermont Castings Dutchwest wood cookstove

Bruce is loading our new stove for the first time.
Eilidh (EYE lee) (age 27 months) is clapping the morning it is all finally installed. Note the flat cook-top. This stove has been in about 2 weeks now. We've fried steak and eggs on it during a 3-day power outage when Ike came through Ohio. We also have pasteurized milk on it in an enamel pan, and made homemade soap on it already. It is quite efficient. Yesterday I could feel its heat upstairs in this old farmhouse. Bruce has percolated coffee on it a few times, and found that coffee stays at a perfect warmth without continuing to percolate, sitting on an iron trivet on top. No more keeping coffee and tea warm on "simmer" on the electric stove.

Homeschooling

We have embarked on our first experience at homeschooling. It is a most interesting experience. It has taken me months to sort out what kind of homeschoolers we really are, and to learn the rules and the lingo. We are eclectic and traditional.

My 16 y/o daughter was taking advanced classes in public school and did well to the end of her sophomore year last year. This year at home we are studying what she would have been taking: World History, Literature, Chemistry and Pre-Calculus/Trigonometry. She is also studying French, taking 2 art classes from the local Oglebay Institute (oil painting and ceramics); acoustic guitar lessons, and the HS principal has permitted her to continue being active in the drama club. She is the stage manager in the fall play. She's a self starter, so homeschooling her is probably easier than it would be some other teenagers.

"Homeschooling" a 2 y/o little girl is really just play. But I have printed out lists of things she needs to accomplish by kindergarten. I've already graduated 2 boys from high school. One of them was in speech therapy from age 2 to about 8, so I have a pretty good idea of what needs done already. I have been gifted with 4 healthy children who always could probably have done better if I'd homeschooled them, provided I had known what I was doing. So my second husband and I are going to try it from the beginning with this one. Well, the oldest I may not have had success with. He is very bright, but was always a challange, and I think having someone other than his mother teaching him was a wise idea. But the others could have easily been homeschooled.

I have help. The 16 y/o and my husband have been teaching the 2 y/o number recognition. I didn't realize this until last night when she was pointing at numbers in a book and saying their proper names. Preschool skill lists also help. Like I didn't realize that cutting out little pieces of paper with scissors was something desireable. My husband disapproved teaching her how to use scissors. We will just have to keep scissors in a secure place from here on.

The public school guidance counselor is worried about my daughter, and my pulling her out of school. She doesn't know it, but she is part of the reason I did. I hope to knock her socks off with what we accomplish at home this year and next. I think my daughter will do better without her guidance.

Elderberry Jelly, Part VI, YUM

Need I say more?

Elderberry Jelly, Part V, Straining

Forget jelly bags. I use cheap cheescloth, and always have. I use it for cheese too. You can get it in the craft section at Walmart, or about any fabric store. There are 4 layers here. This is the hot, mashed pulp, simmered for a few minutes until the pulp and juice separates from the seeds.

I draped 4 layers over this bowl, poured the pulp in gently, then tied it from my cupboard with some paper string. I use various thicknesses of paper string for lots of uses. It is cheap. It can be used to tie packages, tie up sheep fleeces, hang cheeses, and hanging jelly from the cupboard door.

Notice the steam curling around the bottom. This pulp is HOT.

I twist this bag when it is touchable. I twist it one way, then the other, tight, and squeeze as much pulp and juice as I can get out of it without ripping the cheesecloth. It makes the jelly taste better.

While this cooled, and before I twisted the juice out of it, first I washed the pot I poured it out of for the last stage of jelly-making. Then I pulled 4 hot pint jars out of the oven and set them on a clean towel. It is supposed to make 4 1/2 cups, which is only 2 1/2 pint jars, but I always sterilize extra. No recipe is exact.

Then I twist every last bit of juice I can get out of this bag; and pour the juice back into the pot. I add my 4-years expired pectin, and bring it to a rolling boil. Then I add 4 1/4 cups sugar, stirring, and bring it back to a rolling boil for one minute. I take it off the heat. I attempt to remove foam, but there is no foam to remove, really. Then I pour it into the hot jars up to 1/8 inch from the top. I use the tongs I've boiled with the lids to put the lids on the jars, straight out of the simmering water I've boiled them in, and twist on the rings.

Now the recipe from the pectin box says to invert the jars for 5 minutes. This doesn't go well. They leak. So I decided not to invert the second batch.

I make my husband some toast with butter and jelly, with the bread he made yesterday, and I clean out my jelly-making pan, the "foam" cup, and the spills. That is when he tells me it is too lemony. But I don't care. It tastes good.

Elderberry Jelly, Part IV, Mashing

What you see here:

A potato masher in a pot of 6 cups of elderberries. Yes, some of the stems are still on. If you try to remove them, you are guaranteed to go insane.

A juicer with one lemon's juice in it, and two lemon's seeds and pulp (this is the second batch). The recipe calls for 1/4 cup lemon juice. My husband later told me it made the jelly taste "too lemony," masking the elderberry flavor too muich. So I won't use it next time. I was just following the recipe.

A soup mug with a ladle in it, for skimming off the foam which never transpired in this jelly.

A pot with boiled lids, and a boiled tongs. I also boil everything I stick into the jelly or anything else I can, to keep it as sterile as possible. The jars are in the oven at 250 degrees on a cookie sheet. I am careful not to touch the tops when I pull them out with hot pads.

I might mention that I used pectin that expired in 2004. It is 2008. It worked just fine - my jelly set up beautifully.

Elderberry Jelly, Part III

And here they are, all in a bowl. All the stems are in the bag now. You can't tell by this picture, and I didn't know it until I measured them, but there are just about 12 perfect cups of elderberries in that bowl. The jelly recipe calls for 3lbs. According to my Pyrex 4-cup measure, 2 cups is 16 oz., so 6 cups is 3lbs.

How often do you pick a bunch of elderberries, and clean the stems, and wind up with EXACTLY enough for 2 batches of jelly?! I was tickled.

Elderberry Jelly, Part II, Cyanide Issues

I cut the berry heads into this brown paper bag, with kitchen scissors. I thought I had eliminated all the insects before removing the stems. Then I proceeded to roll and pick the very ripe elderberries off the stems, right into the bag. To the right is a blueware bowl that I put the empty stems into. It wasn't remotely big enough, but it was handy.

As I de-berried the stems, I also liberated about 3 spiders, 4 brown crickets, 2 tent worms, 1 unidentified worm, and 2 katydids. The sack got rather full of elderberries.

I have read that elderberry seeds, stems, and particularly the leaves and stalks, contain cyanide. The red elderberries (which I've never seen in Ohio but may be here) are more likely to poison than the black. Even so, poisoning is very rare. People make jelly out of red ones too. Pitted fruits (plums, peaches), almonds, apple seeds; plastics, and cigarette smoke contain cyanide, so it isn't uncommon for us to be exposed to it in small amounts. Cooking is supposed to break down the cyanide, so elderberry jelly is not anything to worry about. It has a distinctive flavor. I suppose the breakdown and the way jellies are made is why you can make such from many wild fruits with cyanide laden seeds, with no ill effects.

But if you are remotely worried about cyanide, the CDC website lists these symptoms:

Small Amounts

rapid breathing
restlessness
dizziness
weakness
headache
nausea/vomiting
rapid heart rate

Large Amounts

convulsions
low blood pressure
slow heart rate
loss of consciousness
lung injury
respiratory failure leading to death

Even the mild symptoms should happen within minutes of exposure. Some people can taste or smell a mild almond flavor. I have been around black elderberries my entire life. I have hollowed out the stems and tried making whistles out of them. I've watched my goats eat the leaves, with no apparent ill effects. In fact, my goats will strip any elderberry plant they find. It is quite possible that I have been mildly poisoned in the past and not known it. But after spending a day in the kitchen with elderberries, I still love them as much as I ever did. You will see why in subsequent posts.

Elderberry Jelly, Part I

The first picture is the elderberries. This bush is over where my 7 y/o Newfoundland, Morgan, likes to sleep. It is the only elderberry patch that the berries stay on until I can use them. This photo was taken today, September 10th, 2008. The berries are ripe, and hanging heavy. Many have dropped to the ground. They are also covered in pollen.


The second picture is the plant whose pollen the elderberries were well dusted with. As a matter of fact, while I was picking berries, and stepped on the stalks of this plant, the pollen filled the aire like mist. It worried me a little since I was about to make jelly with berries literally caked with this pollen. So I spent about an hour going through my books identifying the plant. It reminded me of ragweed, but I knew it wasn't - at least not the real stuff. I seemed to recall someone calling it "Indian Hemp." Repeated googling came up with duds. I finally found it online with the words three-lobed leaf invasive weeds pollen, or some such thing. You can't tell by my picture, but the leaves have distinctive lobes.

It is Ambrosia trifida, in the aster family.
It has many common names:
Giant Ragweed (gut instincts are sometimes right!)
Wild Hemp (hey, that too!)
Buffalo Weed
Horse Cane
Tall Ambrosia
Bitterweed
Bloodweed

With some further googling of the latin name along with the word pollen, poison, and so forth, I learned that the pollen is actually used as a treatment, ingested, for ragweed allergies. And bees use the pollen. I am curious how the hemp got in there, and am wondering if I can use this as a fiber also; possibly in basket weaving or making rope. But I was satisfied the pollen was harmless. So I was satisfied to go on and make my jelly with Ambrosia trifida dusted black elderberries.

ACLU vs. United States

I have been surfing for the past hour to attempt to find out information on the ACLU and communism. One of my coworkers and I had a discussion over the weekend. He claimed that the ACLU was involved in subversive activities, trying to undermine the United States, and that it was started by communists.

I know some communists. Some of them also claim to be anarchists. Are they trying to undermine the U.S. so that another country, like the Soviets or China can take over? No. They believe that an Ayn Rand capitalism doesn't work. I haven't talked with them for a long time though. I'm trying to throw the FBI, I mean the whadayacallit, the homeland security people who might be so very interested in my "connections." Shhh, don't tell anyone.

So I'm surfing, to find the meat of some real information from a conservative website. What I find is froth: people quoting authors like David Kupelian, or whatever his name is. That guy brings me back full circle to the one person who has caused the most political unrest in my direct experience than any self-appointed anarchist I've known - Scott Savage. He rightfully challanged OSU investigating him for sexual harassment when he suggested Kupelian's book, "The Marketing of Evil," for student reading. But then he went on to write an article on Kupelian's own website, telling his side of the story. He claims to have suggested that the university choose a book students might actually WANT to read. You know, books that aren't full of humanistic gobbledygook. And he can't understand what all the fuss is about now. Innocent him.

That isn't the first time he has made anger-provoking statements as the proverbial lamb in a pack of wolves. He called a town meeting in little Chesterhill, OH to try and do something about the drug problem there, and ended up later having a gun put to his head in his home by a drug dealer. Then he organized a neo-Luddite Congress in Barnesville, OH. (Wouldn't Luddites be considered workers?) I have a weird sort of regard for him, but the definition of anarchy as I understand it espouses this personage. He adopted the Quakers, but I never saw him at a Peace and Human Relations Committee Meeting. I think he had his own bees in the bonnet from the get-go.

Many people of both conservative and Christian mind do not think that communism and capitalism can coexist due to the idea that socialism is the path towards communism. So they create this black and white world where there is forever a struggle. Christians, particularly of the fundamentalist conservative leans like to do that, and this is the reason they are losing this black and white battle. Most people see shades and color. Most situations are full of shades and color. When every small err from the one-sided path is potentially a slide toward "the other side," and you MUST stay on the ONE SIDE, lest you be seen as either a communist or a pawn of communists, I for one lose faith in your cause.

So digging through the muck, the best I can make of it was that ...who were they? Roger Baldwin and Crystal Eastman - oh yeah. They wanted rights for ...workers... and ...peace... and - hey, WAIT! They called those ideas COMMUNISM. So they must be BAD, and HUMANISTIC. ooh. ouch. Maybe they just liked the communist ideas of rights for workers, and peace. Those can be capitalist ideas too, maybe, with a stretch. But, they might be too socialistic.

Then I found a columnist, Devvy Kidd, who made the stretch to say that Albert Herlong Jr. a former Democrat from Florida, read the 45 communist goals that the "ACLU PROMOTES" into the congressional record. Nope, Devvy, got that one wrong. Those were written by Skousen, in "The Naked Communist." The goals were about radical communists, not specifically about the ACLU, and transposing intentions one person perceives onto another entity based on their founders' political party is not accurate. Saying all communists are joined at the hips, is as wierd as saying all Christians are joined at the hips. It is a pretty big jump, particularly given Skousen was a Mormon professor of religion at Brigham Young and prior to that worked at the FBI. My son's high school sweetheart goes to Brigham Young. If you think I'm going to take a conservative Mormon's word, and apply their philosophy of an ideology practice in a blanket way to every activity of a self-professed communist Tom, Dick and Harry, you are wrong. If you want to say that the ACLU is doing everything Skousen thought communists were trying to do on his stent in the FBI, maybe you ought to look a little deeper into Baldwin's actions when he found out Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was a hero of the Soviets. Maybe he really WAS just interested in ...workers rights and peace. Passionately.

But one thing is for sure, so far as I can see in nearly every conservative website I went to for information. No ultra-conservative is going to stand up for my constitutional rights. I'm no communist. I'm just a moderate Democrat. Espousing the values of the ACLU is about the only way the U.S. is going to survive in years to come, as I see it, whether their ideas came from communism or not. The Gestapo-style spying on peace meetings is scary; scarier than any commie I've ever met. Dictatorship comes in many shapes and sizes.

The true utopian idealism has not yet been found, and it surely isn't going to come about by taking the best trademarks of all idealisms and villianizing them. I ain't burning my card, Kidd.

Garden 7/19/08

This was after quite a bit of weeding work. The pumpkins have taken off out of the corn at the far end. We put down 4 bales of hay, shaken out across the grass for the pumpkin plants to crawl away on. On the upper end, the rutger tomatoes are all weeded and respaced. The top row is yellow squash which hasn't started to bloom yet. The second row is herbs; then tomatoes, peppers, a row of spanish onions, and then the bean poles in the middle.

Bruce planted some Jacob cattle beans between the peppers and onions, and they've come up nicely.

Below the beans are the Job's Tears; then the beets which are infiltrated with last year's volunteer tomatoes. Then basil and carrots, and before the horseradish came in so abundantly, we planted lettuce, mustard and green onions in there.

As you can see, the blue corn is tasseled. The hubbard squash south of the corn either was burnt off by the manure, or eaten off. The watermelon at the far end didn't have a chance. But its okay. The pumkins are coming out all sides of the corn.

What fun, what fun. I planted some persimmon seeds in the herb row where the cumin didn't come up. We will see if the persimmons do better. How I'd love to have some persimmon trees!

My Oldest Son and the Grape Arbor

This is my 21 y/o. He asked me, "What is that thing for?" I told him it was the grape arbor. He said, "How come the boards are just laying on top of the posts?" I told him, "Because nobody has nailed them on yet." He said, "That's like a simple job, right? It would only take 15 minutes." I told him that simple jobs were more complicated than he thought. So he set out to prove me wrong, except that he found out that I was right. But my grape arbor is yet more put-together. It has been 3 years since we bought those treated posts. They laid on the ground for one year. Then Bruce and I put 3 of them in. The other 3 went in this spring, and I bought the 2x4's. The garden is right next to the arbor. You'd think with all that time weeding, some time would have been made for the arbor. The goats have eaten most of the leaves off the grape vines for the past 5 summers. It is amazing they are still alive.

My great-grandmother planted those Concord grape vines. I hope to train them to the top of this arbor where the goats will have much more difficulty eating the leaves. This was a memorable day.

The Garden on June 20th

I was taking a picture of the Job's tears, which were just weeded and are between the two row markers. But you can't see them very well. They look now like a cross between corn and grass. They are between the green pole beans (to the left) and the brussel sprouts which are just next to the beets. Out at the end, you can see the pumpkin plants have begun spreading, and you can see the corn peeping up behind the horseradish.

Oh, I have horseradish all over my garden. We let it grow where ever it sprouts. When the garden is tilled or plowed, each little bit that gets cut off tends to sprout and form new crowns. I dig it up with a garden fork and make grated horseradish often enough that I we try to confine it to certain parts of the garden, but it is growing out by the chicken house somehow.

There is a row of large Spanish onions next to the beans. I started the onions from seeds and transplanted them, and they are teenie tiny, so you can't see them in this picture at all. The blue pan off to the left is where I ended the green pepper row, and there are two rows of tomatoes further left of that. Then there is a row of herbs and tomatillos, then yellow summer squash, and then sunflowers which either never came up or got eaten by something. I am having a problem with ducks, chickens and groundhogs.

Brussel Sprouts and Pumpkins and Blue Corn

I took these pictures on May 31st also. The first picture is my brussel sprouts. The second is the pumpkins just peeping up, and the corn that I planted directly in the manure we put on the garden last fall, that Bruce dug the weeds out of and spread around a little.