A Traditional Farm Life
By Shasta Hamilton
Greetings from Enterprise, dear friends! There are three watermelon plants emerging
from the newly worked soil at the foot of the steps off our back deck. If I were writing in May this would not be
unusual, but it is already the second week of September.
My oldest daughter recently pulled out the weeds and hoed up
this small area in hopes of planting some fall flowers. She scattered the seed, and we are patiently
waiting to see what comes up. With the
rain showers we’ve had recently, we just might have a chance.
It just so happens that our back porch stoop was the place
our children were recently eating watermelon and spitting the seeds into the
weeds. The weeds are now gone, but the seeds found their way into the freshly
turned earth and are doing what seeds do when conditions are right—germinate.
Carpe diem. If
I can remember back to my high school English class in the early 90’s, this
Latin phrase means something like, “Seize the day.”
While their future is all too uncertain, our little
watermelon friends are seizing what my husband and I have referred to over the
years as “a carpe diem moment.”
Probably our favorite carpe diem moment happened
about twelve years ago when my husband was pastor of a small church plant in
Fredericksburg, Texas. Our oldest son
was just getting his sea legs and learning to walk from the couch, to the
chair, to the coffee table, etc. My
sister-in-law sent a care package including one of those jumbo-sized boxes of
Cheerios—every toddler’s favorite snack food.
The details are now foggy, but we must have opened the care
package on the coffee table in the living room, opening up the box of Cheerios
as well to give our little guy a treat.
I left the room, leaving the opened Cheerio box on the
coffee table. Upon returning I found the
vast majority of the Cheerio box emptied upon the coffee table, and our toddler
grabbing fist fulls of Cheerios and stuffing them into his mouth as fast as
humanly possible.
Carpe diem!
This afternoon my husband took a trailer of scrap metal to
the “back 40” to unload. The appointed
spot was a concrete slab upon which an outbuilding once stood many years
ago. Our two oldest boys recently
finished scooping off the years of dirt that had settled on the concrete, and
swept it clean to accommodate its new re-purposed future.
As it turns out, this re-claimed spot just happens to adjoin
our youngest children’s play area. We
were amused to find the concrete pad had been taken over by a Tonka truck
construction crew in the short time since the dirt and weeds had been
cleared. After what seemed like scores
of plastic loaders and dump trucks were removed from the premises, the
afternoon project was completed.
Our six-year-old son wouldn’t be able to translate the
phrase, “carpe diem,” but he sure knows what it means!
It might be a stretch to try to roll carpe diem and
pie crusts together in the same sentence, but if you’re ready to “seize the
day” and make a pie (like last week’s All-American Apple), you can’t go wrong
with this recipe from an old family friend and accomplished cook.
Never Fail Pie
Crust
3 cups all-purpose
flour
1 cup lard or
shortening
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
1 egg
1 tablespoon white
vinegar
5-6 tablespoons cold
water
1. In large bowl, mix
together flour and salt; cut in lard or shortening until the mixture resembles
cornmeal.
2. In measuring cup,
beat together egg, vinegar, and water with a fork.
3. Add liquid to
flour mixture and toss with fork until flour mixture is moistened and makes a
ball when squeezed together. Add
additional cold water if needed a tablespoon at a time.
4. Divide into 4
equal pieces. Shape into round balls and
then into flattened disks.
5. Place on disk
between floured sheets of waxed paper and roll from center out until crust
edges meet the edges of waxed paper.
(Turn over occasionally and remove and reposition waxed paper to remove
wrinkles, sprinkling on flour if necessary to avoid sticking.)
6. Remove top sheet of
waxed paper. Center pie pan over exposed
crust and invert; remove second sheet of waxed paper. Gently ease crust into pie pan.
7. For a single crust
pie, trim off extra crust, leaving 1/2” hanging over the edge of the pan; fold
under and crimp edge. For a double crust
pie, trim off bottom crust using edge of pie pan as a guide. Fill as desired, roll out top crust and place
over filling. Trim edges leaving 1/2”
hanging over edge of pie pan. Tuck this
extra under the bottom crust to seal contain juices; crimp to finish the
seal. Cut vents to allow steam to escape
and proceed as your recipe directs.
Yield: 4 single or 2 double crusts.
Copyright © 2015 by Shasta Hamilton
Shasta is a fifth generation rural Kansan now residing in
Enterprise, Kansas. She and her husband
own and operate The Buggy Stop Home-Style Kitchen with their six home-schooled
children. You can reach The Buggy Stop
by calling (785) 200-6385 or visit them on the web at www.thebuggystoprestaurant.com.
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