I Love A Parade

The weather is perfect - about 75ºF - and the sky is a startling blue. Often the morning of July 4th is rainy and humid, but today is stunning.  Colors radiate from every surface as though freshly scrubbed. 

Our town's Fourth of July parade is more of a series of events rather than a single, defined one.  There is an annual fun run/walk that begins to pass by our house around 8:00 a.m.  We've watched runners slogging through torrential downpours, but today is merely a pleasant jog down a sunny, tree-lined street.  About 8:30, the kiddie parade passes by - a few dozen small children on tricycles, bicycles, or in arms with their parents, wobble carefully down the street to the applause of the spectators.  We finish putting our tea and breakfast things on the porch, grab the dogs, and settle in for the main event.

At 10:00 a.m., sharp, the parade proper begins with a siren blare from one of the town police cars which clears the way of anyone foolish enough to still be standing in the street.  Following the police vehicle come fire, rescue and emergency vehicles from our town and some of the surrounding communities, horns blasting, sirens screaming as they roll slowly down Main Street in gleaming red or yellow paint and mirror bright chrome.  Volunteer firefighters and children seated on top of the vehicles toss candy to the crowd which prompts a scramble among the younger spectators.   The honor guard and veterans come next, and without prompting, everyone stands respectfully as they pass. 

What rolls by for the next hour and a half includes a delightful and eclectic mixture of just about anything on wheels, feet, paws, or hooves.  There is a significant amount of farm equipment, including individual cadres of John Deere, Farmall, and Massey Ferguson tractors.  In past years, some of these were so large that they would take up both sides of the street and knock off overhanging branches onto unwary spectators.  

Homemade floats from the local school sports teams, dance academy, and 4H chapters are pulled along by still more tractors or large pickup trucks.  

Elaborately dressed horseback riders  - too few of these considering the number of horses in the area - are scattered between the floats.  The horses's manes and tails are braided with red, white and blue ribbons.  I remember my own days as a parade rider, and I know these people have been grooming their horses and polishing their saddles since yesterday.

Dairy queens from the surrounding counties sail past in convertibles, dressed in their lavish gowns like colorful, miniature schooners. I had never seen a dairy queen before moving to Wisconsin.  If you can imagine a beauty pageant or prom queen featuring "real" girls who live on farms and raise cows, you'll have a general idea of what a dairy queen is.  They are all lovely, and they wave to the crowd with all the practiced ease of the Queen of England.  One small child is carried by her grandmother to a dairy queen's car to get a "high five" from one of the queens to the delight of the crowd.  

The high school marching band appears midway in the parade, kitted out in full uniform.  They're quite good, actually - they'd better be if any of them want to be considered for future membership in the University of Wisconsin marching band.   

The town mayor rides along the parade route in a fire engine red golf cart, state and local politicians up for election distribute campaign literature, and karate kids from the town dojo show off their high kicks and twirling swords.  The cast of the community theater rolls by on a float, as does a charming wagon from the Monroe Cheese Festival, all done up like a Swiss chalet, with Swiss theme music to boot tinkling from hidden speakers.  

Mixed into all of this are cars and trucks from local businesses advertising anything and everything - from sandwiches to tree services to street cleaners to farm feed for dairy cattle.  

No, it's not the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade or the Rose Parade, but what it lacks in cash, flash, and polish it more than makes up for in charm and warmth.  Candy is thrown into the crowd from most of the floats, neighbors chat with each other, and it feels like what it is - a real community.  We cheer for the dairy queens and 4H queens, we cheer for the elderly woman driving a tractor with a young woman, possibly her great granddaughter, sitting beside her.  We cheer for our fire trucks and veterans. We cheer because it's summer and it's sunny and green and the people on parade are our friends and children and the grandmother down the street.

Harvest and Bear and JuJuB and I take it all in.  JuJuB sleeps through part of it, having seen eight parades by now, but Bear is all eyes and ears.  He doesn't want to miss a moment.

July 3rd

The Fourth of July is a huge event in my town, especially on Main Street.  Many of us living on Main Street decorate in a big way for all the holidays, and the 4th of July is no exception.  

Since yesterday, the normal traffic sounds on Main Street have been augmented with the buzzing of multiple lawnmowers and the swish of brooms as we prepare to host the rest of the town for the annual parade.    

At our house, the front garden has been given a new layer of mulch, the weeds have been pulled, pea gravel has been put between the paving stones, the geraniums have been trimmed, and the sidewalk and porch have been swept and tidied.  We put up the bunting and flags this afternoon, and I'll be setting up the tea table this evening so we can have breakfast on the porch while watching the parade.  

I started mowing the lawn this morning, and Harvest finished up after lunch.  We mowed our neighbor's front lawn and terrace (the lawn area between the sidewalk and the street) as well as our own.  Mowing the terrace is important because in the next few hours, people will begin to put down their blankets and lawn chairs so they can have the best seats for the parade that will go down Main Street tomorrow morning.   If you look in the photo below, you can see the blanket and chairs of two very early birds who set up their seats before noon on the neighbor's terrace across the street.  Our terrace is currently unoccupied, but that won't last much longer.

My Two Sons

I grew up with cats and dogs, but I never really "got" dogs until I had two of my own.  These are our "boys."  Bear is on the left, and JujuB is on the right.  Both of the dogs come from Busy B's Kennel in Plover, Wisconsin.  Bear's registered name is Busy B's Jazz Bear, and JujuB's name is Busy B's Chess's Fool's Gold.  

No, they are not father and son, though they do look like it, but they are second cousins.   They are both Pembroke Welsh corgis - the kind the Queen of England has.  If you saw the opening ceremony at the Olympics in London, then you saw these little guys in action, trotting along at Her Majesty's heels.  Corgis are herding dogs, and they will herd anything:  cats, ducks, sheep, geese, children, and British royalty.  It's what they do.  They can also hear a door slam five houses down and will let you know about it, which makes them excellent service dogs for people who are hearing impaired.

Corgis are herding dogs, and they are often smarter than the humans they live with.  Bear loves doing agility classes, and JujuB will be working on his therapy dog certification soon.  They play fetch, wrestle with each other, sleep on the bed with us and the cat, Maggie, and keep us amused in all sorts of ways.  There are dogs, and then there are corgis.

Granola!

My friend, Mildred, makes the best granola ever.    Not too sweet yet full of flavor and packed with nutrition.  It's so popular that it is a coveted raffle prize at the bi-annual women's spirituality conference she attends where she has been the head cook for a number of years.  

I finally got the recipe from her.  It is a modified version of the Amish granola recipe from the book New Recipes From Quilt Country by Marcia Adams.  I modified it a bit as well, adding vanilla extract and a touch of toasted sesame and pumpkin seed oils for their wonderful flavors.  I cut back on the vegetable oil by the amount of the sesame and pumpkin seed oils I added.  While I use extra virgin olive oil for almost all of my cooking, I recommend using canola or another very mild oil for the 1/2 cup of vegetable oil to avoid adding an unwanted "olive-y" taste.

The main ingredients are oatmeal and a variety of nuts.  I can get all the ingredients from my local Amish store, but you can find them easily at most grocery stores.  Oats, in their natural form, are a gluten-free grain, but they can sometimes contain tiny amounts of gluten if they are processed on the same equipment with grains which contain gluten, so if you are gluten intolerant, you may want to go to a health food store and get certified gluten-free oats, just to make sure.  If you are allergic to any of the nuts, substitute others which you prefer.  You can also add dried fruit as well.  I have never been a fan of coconut in granola, but if you must... well, go ahead.

I like to eat this granola with a generous dollop or two of non-fat vanilla Greek yogurt.  You may want to eat yours with milk or soy/almond milk.  You can also cook it as a hot cereal, too, or just munch it from the jar.

This recipe makes two quarts, but it will be eaten before you know it, and it can be refrigerated or frozen if you need to keep it for a while.  It is so delicious, though, that this is unlikely to be a problem.

Mildred's Granola

6 cups old-fashioned oats (not instant or quick-cooking)

3/4 cup coarsely chopped English walnuts (or hickory nuts, if you can get them)

3/4 cup unsalted raw almonds (whole, chopped, or slivered as you like)

1/4 cup light or dark brown sugar, packed

1 cup sesame seeds

1 cup unsalted sunflower seeds

1/4 cup flax seeds

1/2 cup vegetable oil (less about two tablespoons if adding the sesame and pumpkin seed oils)

1/2 cup honey

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Optional:  1 cup dried, unsulfured fruit such as cherries, cranberries, apricots, or raisins 

                 1 Tablespoon toasted sesame oil

                1 Tablespoon pumpkin seed oil

Preheat oven to 350ºF.  In a large bowl, combine the oats, walnuts, almonds, brown sugar, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, and flax seeds.  In a small bowl, whisk together the vegetable oil, honey,  and vanilla extract, and the sesame and pumpkin seed oils, if you are using them.  Drizzle this mixture over the dry ingredients, and combine well

Transfer the mixture to two jelly roll pans or two 9 x 12 pans coated with non-stick cooking spray, putting half of the mixture into each pan and shaking the pans gently to spread the mixture evenly.  Bake the granola for 10 minutes, stir well, then bake for another 10 minutes.  Do not overcook, as the granola will begin to overcook and burn quickly.  Remove from the oven, and stir again.  Cool completely, and break up any large chunks, if necessary.  Store in an airtight container.  The granola will keep fresh for at least a couple of weeks in summer, a bit longer in cooler weather.  If you plan to keep it for an extended period, refrigerate or freeze it to retain its freshness.

Tomatoes on the Roof

I live on Main Street in a small town just a bit south and west of Madison, Wisconsin.  I moved here, on purpose, from my native Southern California in the fall of 2004, and I love it.  I live in my dream house - a Victorian house built by a carriage maker in 1896 - with my wife of nearly 30 years.  

Most of my garden is in my front yard; my tomatoes and basil are on the roof, hence the name of this blog - Tomatoes on the Roof.  

Gardening in my back yard is a perilous undertaking between the rabbits, who are charming but who have a taste for new seedlings; the squirrels, who dig holes in the soil searching for stored walnuts; and the imposing, and very generous, walnut tree in my other neighbor's yard.  This tree provides walnuts for any number of squirrels, but the juglone in the roots and nuts stunts the growth of many plants in a wide area, including most vegetables.

What to do?  With a cavalier disregard for the Midwestern tradition of "lawn in front, veggies in back," we ripped out the front lawn and began planting.  We discovered that raised beds were not only attractive, but the rabbits were disinclined to raid plants in the front yard where people and their dogs frequently walk by.  We surrounded the raised beds with perennial and annual flowers and mulched with dark wood chips so the garden is attractive as well as functional.  The garden has now become a great conversation starter with passers by when we are working in it.  

In the process of creating the front garden - which has evolved over several years - we also discovered that tomatoes take up space.  Lots of space.  If we wanted a garden that looked presentable - we do live on Main Street, after all - we would have to put more "controllable" plants in the raised beds in front and put the tomatoes elsewhere.  Inspired by the rooftop garden at the Rochester Zen Center in New York, I decided to scrounge up large pots and put them on the flat roof of the back porch.  The roof has a southern exposure, perfect for heat-loving tomatoes, and there is a little, hobbit-sized door that leads out to the roof from the storage area behind the upstairs kitchen.  I remembered that a nearby Italian restaurant grows their basil outside on their dining patio, so the choice to pot my basil plants and put them on the roof with the tomatoes was a no-brainer.  Viva Italia!

Life is good here.  The land is generous, and the weather has conviction - when it rains, it really rains; when it's cold, it's spectacularly cold.  This makes for a handy topic of conversation when meeting new neighbors.  "Hot/cold out, isn't it?" is a typical opener, followed by a few minutes of commentary on the details of the weather before launching into other topics of conversation.

In Wisconsin I am not strange or weird or peculiar for my love of dipping candles and spinning fiber, though many city folk are still fascinated by these occupations.  Perhaps this is because many Midwestern cities like Madison are surrounded by farmland, and most people have seen cows or sheep on the hoof, at least occasionally, as opposed to in a plastic package labeled "ground beef" or "lamb shanks."

In Southern California, I often didn't know the names of my neighbors and rarely spoke to them, leaving them to their business.  In my new hometown in Wisconsin, I both know and like my neighbors.  We help each other shovel snow in the winter, mow lawns in summer, exchange recipes, celebrate births and birthdays, and console each other in loss.  

Giving is a way of life here.  My neighbor to one side grew an abundance of rhubarb this year; she reminded me more than once to take as much as I wanted - free of charge.  We will, at some point in the near future, deliver a batch of scones, muffins, or bread to her family.   I met a new neighbor the other day who admired my Siberian iris.  Since I had plenty, I grabbed a pot, dug up a clump, and handed it to her on the spot.  The iris had been a gift to us during the first spring we lived here from a neighbor a few doors down.  That neighbor was a delightful, sassy old woman who was originally from Australia.  My new acquaintance was originally from New Zealand.  It seemed only right that she should have some of that iris in her garden.  What goes around comes around.  That's pretty much the way it is here.

Welcome to my blog.  In the spirit of Midwestern neighborliness, please feel free to comment and exchange ideas, recipes, and helpful hints.   Allow your kinder, gentler self to find a home here, away from the rush and turmoil of life.  Enjoy!