My Mom's and My Man's Mutual Memories by Margo Hoornstra

They were separated in age by more than thirty years, an entire generation, yet many of their childhood experiences were, for the most part, identical. I'm talking about my mother and my husband. She was born in the early nineteen hundreds, he was born in the middle of that century. She was born at home near Detroit, he was born at a hospital in the upper peninsula of Michigan. That appears to be the major difference in their lives. The locations where they first came into this world, 400 miles and three decades apart.

My mother was raised on a family farm north of Detroit, my husband on a family farm south of Sault Ste. Marie. As they talked about those early days in each of their lives, parallels I found fascinating began to emerge.

She recalled when electricity was installed out to their farm. He had memories of the same event. The communal dipper in the water bucket in the kitchen, cooking on a wood stove, lighting by kerosene lantern, using a chambermaid in lieu of a midnight trek to the outhouse. Helping to bring in the cows at night and collect eggs from the hen house in the morning.

Maybe I'm easily amused, but it enthralled me as I listened to them compare such highly similar notes about two childhoods that took place, one in the twenties and thirties and one in the fifties and sixties.

In locations that were a mere 400 miles apart.

As others have shared in this space, I'd like to add a few thoughts about my mother, since tomorrow is her day too and I plan to take her some flowers. It's been over twenty-five years since I lost my mom, but not a day goes by that I don't think about her, wish I could talk to her, introduce her to my grandchildren. In my own way, I do talk to her now and then. I'm also sure she's seen and loves the grandkids I'm so proud of.

Like many other mothers, each and every day of my childhood, she told me how beautiful and intelligent and special I was. (Her opinion, I know, but I actually began to believe her.) Each and every day, she also insisted I could do anything in life I sought to do. Hopefully, I've done the same for the children I was fortunate to have.

With such a great example to follow, how could I not?


My blog dates here at the Roses of Prose are the 11th and 23rd.

Visit me at:  www.margohoornstra.blogspot.com

Face Book and Twitter

Give Me Turbulence by Brenda Whiteside

NEW BEGINNINGS! I love to write about new beginnings, and I'm currently in the middle of a new beginning. The title at the top of my web site is Discover Yourself. My blog is also called Discover Yourself. Some people prefer finding a niche and remaining there forever. I've always found myself on the move both personally and professionally - always discovering. If you've read my books, you'll see my heroines and some of my heroes are still discovering their ways, even those who are forty and fifty somethings.

Technically, all of my new beginnings started in 2012, but some starts take longer.

On a personal level, my husband retired and we moved to a small farm on a prairie in Arizona. We're city folk. Or were. By combining households with my son and his wife, we took on farming. My son is the major farmer, but Frank and I did get our hands dirty. I split my time between farming and writing. Part way into this experiment, I began blogging about our adventure and will continue to do so this year. We're expanding. We grew enough to fill our freezer and shelves with plenty leftover for the local food bank and family. This year we will go at it on a more commercial basis although still organic and natural.

Another new beginning that started last year is my first ever grandchild. Sadie Belladonna's expected Earth entry day is February 22. This is a new beginning that will impact our entire household. I'm excited beyond belief to have a grandchild. How that works out living under the same roof remains to be seen. Chuckle here.

On a professional level, I signed with an agent last year. Until now, I've been published by small houses that are approachable directly by an author. I've been very happy with The Wild Rose Press and Melange, but because of their size, certain results of being published are not readily available for my books. For one, readers cannot walk into a bookstore and buy my book because they are lured by the way it looks on the shelf. The store can order it for you, but if you don't know me...well, the obvious. By signing with an agent, the big New York publishers will give my book a look. That new beginning was stalled by Hurricane Sandy and then the holidays. Arghhhh!! So, this year could be the start of the start. Remains to be seen.

All and all, 2013 is going to be a year of changes and beginnings. Am I nervous? Nope. I love this kind of turbulence!

Visit Brenda at www.brendawhiteside.com.

Or on FaceBook: www.facebook.com/BrendaWhitesideAuthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/brendawhitesid2

She blogs on the 9^th and 24^th of every month at http://rosesofprose.blogspot.com

She blogs about prairie life and writing at http://brendawhiteside.blogspot.com/

Celebrating the Outdoors With Farming by Brenda Whiteside

Farming is not for the faint of heart or weak of limb. Although, my son, Lance is the lead in the vegetable garden and does ninety percent of the work, the other ten percent leaves me exhausted at times. My main pursuit is to eliminate the weeds. If you are at all familiar with fertile prairie, you're laughing at me. The big problem is we let them get ahead of us. But then I think they multiply while we sleep. We're going organic so manual labor is the about the only way to take care of the monsters. And if I don't get out of the vegetable garden soon and into the blackberry garden, we won't be able to see the blackberries to pick them! This is the weak of limb part.

Blankets protect our babies

Pepper plants in the foreground

The weeds came back with the blackberries

Weeding the blackberries in March

The faint of heart part comes in when our little babies die or get eaten alive by bugs. Like I mentioned in prior blogs, the weather took out tomato plants and rendered our peach and apricots fruitless, the bugs destroyed some leafy greens. We got a scare with the potatoes - again the weather. The night that happened, we realized that whatever the reported low will be for Paulden will actually be about seven degrees colder here. The tops of the potatoes were black. I took little manicure scissors and cut off all the black areas. We then mulched and covered all the plants with the blankets. They seem to be responding.

Frank has worked hard on the lawn

The blankets are the best thing ever! If only we'd known about them earlier. Lance visited a large successful farm in Chino Valley. His friend is the owner's daughter and she encouraged him to 'just go talk to my dad'. He didn't want to intrude but the man was extremely gracious and helpful. So now we cover our babies in blankets which keep out the nasty bugs that devastated our leafy greens. They also help to keep the moisture in and keep down the weeds. We were able to actually save some broccoli and chard that we thought the bugs had destroyed.

Last night we had asparagus, and in our salad we had radishes. Next week we won't need to buy any salad greens or spinach. Our garden is beginning to feed us! Now, if we could only eat the weeds.