It was very warm today. When I was coming back from Jeff and Kathy's a thermometer in New Holstein registered at 90 degrees, though my car thermometer was less the mid 80's.

Kathy and I picked enough currents so that I can make 3 gallons of wine. They are nice and ripe and ready to do. Kathy also gave me some starts of a flowering plant that she got from Aunt Helen's house after Randy and Donna bought it. It has a pink fluffy flower and she thinks it is called the Queen's plume or something like that. It was really pleasant while we were picking the currents.

When I got home I cleaned the currents and got them into the primary fermenter with boiling sugar water poured over them. This is the first step. Tomorrow, after the mixture cools, I will stir in the additives and then the next day the yeast. Then five days later it goes into the Secondary Fermentors (the jugs with the air filters on top) for a long time. Wine making does take patience and is providing good practice for me as patience has never been one of my big virtues. We find that the wines we make from scratch, really are the best if they age for at least a full year. They lose any harshness and really mellow.

One of the wine companies always said "No wine before it's time."

Yesterday at lunch with the Plymouth girls, we grandma's got to talking about toilet training. Betty has a little grandaughter who came over to see her with her pants REALLY full and very cheerful about it. She is about two and learning but not too very concerned. I was remembered and shared how Bret got potty trained. He had learned to use the toilet for urinating but didn't quite get the other. One day he came to me with a disgusted look on his face and asked me to change his diaper. I said to him. "You could to that in the potty you know." He got the funniest look on his face and said. "I CAN!" and that was it. Never had a problem unrelated to sickness after that.

He was only about 1 1/2 years old. But I was fortunate. He did not like being messy.

Tomorrow should be a bit quieter. Have a nice Sunday yourself.

Mary

Another lovely summer day. Everything is so green and blooming now. The corn is high in the fields despite the fact that we could use some rain. Dick, Jim and I are starting to talk fresh corn again. I will have to start looking at the farmer's markets in the next week or so. We have fresh corn on the cob and sliced tomatoes on Saturdays during the season.

On my walk this morning I was thinking about two very progressive women from last century.

The first is a story of a lady. She was a homemaker and a mother at a time when women did not work outside of the home. Of course, in those days, the first 10 years of the 20th century, homemaking was even more of a full time job than it is now. Wash was done in tubs on a washboard, or with a wringer if you were really lucky. Bread was baked from scratch and meals were cooked with no labor saving kits or packages.

Anyway, every summer, this lady and her neighbor would take a weeks vacation. They would spend one week in the backyard, reading and talking and relaxing. They would not clean or cook or sew and then they would go back to being busy housewives.

Pretty cool Right. This was my Grandma Helen Deeley.

The second lady was in her late teens when she and a cousin, traveled to South Dakota to homestead. They picked a plot of land and even built a soddy (a home out of the sod in the area. A common starting home for the homesteaders.) They came home but the wonder is that they did it. This would have been somewhere in the early part of the 20th Century also. Probably a little later than the "vacation". But not much.

I am amazed every time I think of this. What Gutzy ladies. The woman was Dick's mother Alice Kunert.

Be healthy.

Mary

Choir again tonight. We are working on the German Mass. We have the parts down pretty well and are stumbling through the words. Next week we go to Milwaukee to practice at the Bavarian Inn with the big choir. We figure that we are pretty green, but that there will be lots of segments of the choir and individuals who REALLY know what they are doing and we just have to kind of search them out when we get there. It is always easier in numbers and the music is quite lovely. Nothing like the rather strange Polka Masses that we have had at Blessed Trinity.

Dick got his blood tested today and Sue says that her is boring again. He is ALWAYS within the perameters. We went down to the lab for his blood test that follows the yearly physical and then went to breakfast and grocery shopping. We shared an omelet today. I talked him into a Feta Cheese, onion and tomato omelet and it was very very good.

This afternoon we went back to the clinic to se a nutrition specialist for advice on how to help Dick lose some weight. We have some good ideas from her and and Dick is agreeable. The hardest part will be the exercizing but as she said - keep is easy and slow. And just do it. He has been reducing his portions very well the past few months.

It was beautiful today. It rained a bit at about 8:00AM but that was all finished by 9:00 then it got sunny and warm, about 76 degrees.

I found fresh tuna steaks at the grocery store, so we will have them tomorrow night for dinner. I do like fresh tuna. We will find out if Dick does. I know that I had leftover tuna from somewhere and he liked the tuna sandwiches that I made from it.

When I was a little girl, I remember going to a family picnic at a big house that was perched up on top of a hill. It was for the Bowser Family. (My Mother's side.) I remember playing with lots of cousins, though I don't know who the were anymore, but we kids got to drink all the soda we wanted. In those days that was a real treat. I bring this up because when I think this is one of the few times that I met Fr. Mike when I was a kid. I don't remember him but I do remember his mother, Eileen. Eileen was a beautiful woman with black black hair and very elegant looking. she looked almost like a Spanish woman. She was quite an interesting person. Very opinionated and worked for years at the Kettle Moraine prison. She died before I came back from California and is buried under a big Celtic Cross in the newer section of the cemetary at Our Lady of the Angels church. Johnny Bill Shea, her husband, is there now and there is a space between them where Mike will be laid to rest some day. Johnny Bill said that he arranged that so the Mike be a mediator and keep them from fighting through eternity. He said they fought all the time in life and he wouldn't have had any other kind of woman.

Happy Friday.

Mary

Loverly day in the neighborhood. I think I am mixing up Mr. Rogers and My Fair Lady. But it is a descriptive phrase. The temps were in the upper 60s to low 70s. The sun shone, the skies were blue. The neighborhood cardinal was singing loudly while Chelsea and I were on our walk and darned near drowned out our conversation in the office later this afternoon.

I worked out in the yard for about an hour and got the hanging pots watered and cleaned up and the tree/bush in the front yard trimmed. I too Chelsea out with me for a bit but there were some kids down the street with a few remaining firecrackers and I didn't have the heart to make her suffer any more.

Dick had his physical this morning. For the first time in several years, there was no irregular heartbeat. This is a good thing, but Dr. Phelan said that it does not mean that is it healed. They will keep monitering.

Thinking back on the conversations that were going around yesterday. Fr. Mike said, (expounding on superstition, edicts and curses) that a priest in Armstrong at Our Lady of the Angels, then named St. Matthew, had cursed the parish back in 1858 or thereabouts. He said that they would not have a priest ordained from the parish for 100 years and lo and behold Mike was ordained a priest in 1964 along with his cousin Jim Shea in or about the same year. This did prove the prophesy or curse to be true. Who knows?

Cadfael's Book of Days, yesterday and today, were interesting.

Yesterday. "The failure of the priesthood to set and example of piety and simplicty helps to turn people to false prophets and dissenting sects. The Church has a duty also to purge its own shortcomings."

Today. " 'It's a grave matter to disagree with the chruch,' said the layman. 'It's not for us to kno better than the priests, not where faith;s concerned. Listen and say Amen, that's my advice." Ellis Peters

I guess both are true. In this day and age it becomes difficult to follow the advice of the second as we watch and see that the clergy is not fulfilling the duty to do the first.

Have a nice Thursday


Mary

It was a feel good day.

The gathering for Fr. Mike Shea was lots of fun. We chattered and ate and drank together and it was nice. The meal turned out fine and was an easy one to serve and eat.

We had Cuban Ropa Vieja (Old Rags) on hard rolls, beans, salad and blueberry pie. Aunt Kathleen brought a veggie tray and I shared some venison hot sticks.

The blueberry pie is so simple and really one of the best pies in the world.

You bake a pie crust and fill it with four cups of fresh washed and dried blueberries.

Make a glaze by cooking 2/3 cup water, 1 cup sugar, 3 heaping tablespoons of cornstarch and 1 cup of blueberries until it is thick and clear, about 10 minutes.

Pour over berries in the crust, cool and refrigerate and serve with a nice dollup of fresh whipped cream.

We talked a lot about the Bowser family and the Parnell, Mitchell and Armstrong area. The story of the time that St. Michael's Church was boarded shut was discussed.

This is my understanding of the story.

St. Michael's Church near Parnell was a mainly Irish faith community. At some point a German pastor was sent to serve the parish. Apparently he was not to the liking of a large part of the community and a number of young bucks, notably the Rooney boys actually locked and boarded up the door to the church to keep the priest out. This caused such a stir and a scandal that the Diocese put an edict on the church for a year during which no masses were permitted in the building. This meant that these hard working farmers had to travel several extra miles to attend Mass. An Irish Catholic did not miss Mass, you know, so it was a real hardship. For years and a couple of generations this event was not talked about but Grandpa Bowser would allude to it and comment that the the Rooney's all died young and also he said, "No good ever came to them." I guess it was true and he really believed it.

Mike talked a lot about his kids. He has 116 now. 68 of them have AIDS. He is going to request a new grant from the Elizabeth Taylor Foundation. They usually only give one to an individual place but Bill, our contact, suggested that he try again anyway as apparantly Miss Taylor is impressed by the beautiful faces of the children that Mike sends to them.

I guess that is enough for today. It was much cooler and not at all muggy. Quite a relief after the muggy hot days that we have had.

There are still a few firecrackers going off now and then so poor little Chelsea Dog is down in the den in front of Jim's chair, probably poised to go under the bed if things REALLY get bad.

Love Mary

Happy Fourth of July! It seems quieter tonight than it was last night. Of course, it is still kind of twilight and the fireworks at the lakefront don't start for a half an hour yet. Last night the noise and light started at about 8:30. There is some activity but not much. Poor Chelsea, was a literal basket case last night. I forced her to go outside at one point, thinking that she really needed the opportunity to go the the bathroom. She wouldn't and actually turned down a lettuce treat.


I prepared the meat and pies for tomorrow's dinner so that I just need to heat things up while the guests are here. Jeff and Kathy are picking up Mother. Uncle Pat called for directions so I know that he and Joan will be here and Aunt Kathleen and Uncle Bob are coming.

We finally got rain. It actually rained early this morning before dawn and then started again at about 10 and rained some more until about noon. We need it so bad. This was a steady soaky rain and I hope it did some good.

Do you know that Dick has never had S'mores? I was shocked to hear that. Jim said he never had them either. This came up because I bought some Keebler S'more snacks. They are the construct your own, like cheese and cracker packs. You spread this creamy marshmellow on a sweet cracker and top it with a piece of chocolate and the second cracker. It tastes good - But - Those boys are going to have to experience the fun of slapping a burnt marshmellow on a piece of a Hershey bar between two Real graham crackers. Such deprived childhoods. I need to rectify that


Mary

Today was a fairly quiet day. Church at 8:00, a visit with Mother. Bobbie and I worked at Rhine from 1:00 til about 3:00. We left early because it was so slow - the Fourth of July Weekend you know. I shot one round of trap and three targets of pistol. Not too bad but nothing to write home about.

Mother and I were remembering years gone by. She has a cartoon on her refrigerator that is one of her favorites. It depicts Heaven with a quartet of souls who have "arrived" there singing barbershop songs. When she pointed it out, I immediately remembered the family picnics at Grandma and Grandpa Bowser's house. As the evening wore on the singing always started. The Bowsers, my Uncle Leo and Aunt Kathleen and Dad all had beautiful voices and loved to sing.

They would sing in harmony. They would sing in quartets and duets. And each person sang their specialty solos. The Bowser cousins with Dad and Grandpa sang barbershop. Dad and Aunt Kathleen would sing Blue Hawaii, Uncle Leo sang like Louis (Sachmo) Armstrong and on and on. Such warm fuzzy times and how we ate.

Grandpa Bowser's house was up on a little hill. Forming a "wall" around the yard were hedges that protected the yard from prying eyes and muffled street noise (not that there was much street noise on that little back street in Sheboygan Falls). Grandpa always read the Sunday paper on the front porch after church. Grandpa always wore his vest and his hat when he was outside the house. One Sunday, my Uncle Noel, then a teenager, walked out on the porch and told Grandpa "I think I can take you, Dad." Grandpa didn't say a word. He got up, took off his hat and set it on a table on the porch. He walked off the porch into the yard and motioned Noel down.

They squared off. Grandpa picked Noel up and tossed him over the hedge.

Noel said that he never challenged Grandpa again. Years later, he knew he could have beaten him but when men grow older they really don't want to prove that their Dad's are not still Supermen.

Have a nice Fourth of July.

I will be thinking of you

Mary