Country Cousin

Issue Date: June 10, 2021

School's out, summer is here!!!

Once again, TIMESLand has plunged directly from frosts and freezes into hot, hot, summer weather, subjecting bodies acclimated to winter to suffocating humidity and outdoor temperatures soaring into the 90s.

Don't know why that's a surprise. We call the weather "unseasonably hot," but it seems to happen every year. Temperatures moderated a bit on Wednesday, and prognosticators are calling for fine weather for the next week or so, except for possibly some rain on Saturday.

We can leave our air conditioning to get out and enjoy summer in the great Northwoods.

All the events that make summer so much fun here in northern Wisconsin seem to be coming back bigger and better than ever after being pretty much closed down last year due to the Covid pandemic.

Maybe you want to plan something special for Dad on Father's Day, coming up on Sunday, June 20, which also happens to be the official First Day of Summer.

Right now we're in the middle of June Dairy Month, so eat and enjoy! Celebrate with ice cream, whipped cream, sour cream, cheese, and more, and watch for the June Dairy Breakfasts on the Farm, coming up Sunday, June 13 in Oconto County and June 27 in Marinette County.

Peshtigo's concerts in the Park are starting up again, Oconto's big Copper Fest starts Friday, June 11 and runs through Sunday, June 13, with live music, food, games, a trout pond, racing pigs and ducks, and a parade at 10 a.m. on Saturday, and there are fun events coming up all over TIMESLand. Check the ads in today's Peshtigo Times, and watch your community bulletin boards.

CHASING BUTTERFLIES

Summer is the time for fun events, but it's also the perfect time to sit quietly alone outside, watching the butterflies, giving thanks to God, and soaking up the sunshine.

If you chase butterflies, you probably will not catch one. Best if you don't, anyway. But when you are still, one may very likely land on you. It seems to help if you smile while you're sitting there. Maybe butterflies can feel the sweetness.

Speaking of lovely things that flutter about, haven't seen any fireflies yet this year, but they should be adding their starry notes to fields any day now.

As most of us know from our childhood, they can be caught and displayed in jars like a make-believe flashlight. Just let them go again before their little lights go out.

HONOR THE FLAG

Monday, June 14 is Flag Day in the United States of America. What we know fondly today as the "Stars and Stripes" was adopted by the Continental Congress as the official American flag on June 14, 1777, in the midst of the Revolutionary War. The Declaration of Independence made adoption of an American flag necessary. Previously, each colony or special interest had its own flag. Colonial troops also fought under many different flags with various symbols"rattlesnakes, pine trees, and eagles"and slogans""Don't Tread on Me," "Liberty or Death," and "Conquer or Die," to name a few.

On the 14th of June, Congress made the following resolution: "The flag of the United States shall be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white, with a union of thirteen stars of white on a blue field "�" Official announcement of the new flag was not made until Sept. 3, 1777.

On Flag Day we should fly the flag if we have one. Perhaps dressing ourselves and our families in the good old Red, White and Blue colors of the flag on the day designated to honor it would be a good tradition to start.

Was upset back on July 3, 1989 when the United States Supreme Court ruled against laws that would punish anyone who burned or otherwise insulted our flag. Felt that was an unpatriotic decision. Still do, to some extent, but also in the years since have come to realize the truth of an explanation of that decision by Justice William J. Brennan "We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in doing so we dilute the freedom that this cherished emblem represents."

How different that attitude is from the Islamic extremists who regularly murder people who insult or even just ignore their flag or their Koran.

Perhaps our Supreme Court was right to say we Americans are better than that. We should show respect for the flag because we respect everything it stands for, not because we're afraid not to.

That said, do wish those who do not respect our Flag and the values it stands for would go live under a flag that they do agree with!

SCHOOL RULES

School is out for the season. Never sure who is happier about that - the kids or the teachers, who are both freed from daily duties in the classrooms. things were much different than usual this year, and lots of kids, and even their teachers, were glad to be back to face to face learning after being in solitary confinement at home for far too long. Hopefully, by the time school starts in fall those hideous masks will also be gone for good!

TEACHING HISTORY

Have been much concerned lately about kids not being taught history as it actually was, and hearing that "history" and "civics" classes are being turned more into propaganda for the "woke" culture. Parents and grandparents can help prevent problems by just talking to your kids, and telling them what you learned growing up.

Also, by talking to school board members and keeping an eye on new curriculum, new text books and new on-line educational programs being offered to your kids - or forced on them.

OLD RULES

Not only lessons have changed, teaching has too. Wonder how today's teachers and the kids in their classes would like these old rules that originated in a school district somewhere in this nation in 1872. Educational requirements for school teachers were very minimal, and many of them in small rural districts were extremely young and inexperienced.

These teachers often handled all 12 grades in a single classroom, and part of their pay was lodging in the homes of students on a rotating basis. They not only had to teach without benefit of today's technology, they generally were also responsible for janitorial duties, or at least for making sure those duties got done, generally by students.

Here are the rules:

1. Teachers each day will fill lamps, clean chimneys.

2. Each teacher will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the daily' session.

3. Make your pens carefully. You whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils.

4. Men teachers may take one evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they go to church regularly.

5. After ten hours in school, the teachers may spend the remaining time reading the Bible or other good books.

6. Women teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.

7. Every teacher should lay aside from each pay a goodly sum of this earnings for his benefit during his declining years so that he will not become a burden on society.

8. Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any form, frequents pool or public halls, or gets shaved in a barber shop will give good reason to suspect his worth, intention, integrity and honest.

9. The teacher who performs his labor faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of twenty cents per week in his pay, providing the Board of Education approves.

Students in that same district reportedly had some rules that could and should be in effect today, except the one about firewood. They were:

1. Respect your schoolmaster. Obey him and accept his punishments.

2. Do not call your classmates names or fight with them. Love and help each other.

3. Never make noises or disturb your neighbors as they work. Be silent during classes.

4. Do not talk unless it's absolutely necessary.

5. Bring firewood into the classroom for the stove whenever the teacher tells you to.

6. If the master calls your name after class, straighten the benches and tables, sweep the room, dust and leave everything tidy.

SOMEONE DO SOMETHING!

Had forgotten about this poem until I found a copy in a packet of my mom's old memorabilia. Wrote it myself, apparently in 1991, and find it's still appropriate today, perhaps even more appropriate. Thanks, Mom, for saving it.

I read the headlines, horror filled, of murders, famine, strife.

Oh, Lord, I cried, if You were real, You'd cure the ills of life.

How could You let these things go on?

Why doesn't someone do something?

Do You even care?

When I see these things I think

You're not even there.

Then whirled I was through time and space.

With blackness all around.

And I landed in an empty place.

Where glory shone about.

"You!" it boomed, that thunderous voice!

"What did you do today?"

"Did you see the sparrow had fallen from its nest?

Did you stop to pick it up, and put it with the rest?"

"Did you see the toddler, crying in the park?

Did you stop to comfort her, or hurry home ere dark?"

"Did you listen when your son asked you to shed some light,

Or did you say, I'm late to work, we'll have to talk tonight?"

"What about the lady who'd found her purse was gone?

Did you offer her a quarter so she could use the phone?"

"Your friend who suffered all alone. She asked for you a lot.

You meant to call before she died, but you again did not."

"You saw the scoundrels busy, taking money from old Gus,

But if you'd taken time to call, then you'd have missed the bus."

"You saw the dealer in the street, passing, poisonous drugs,

But when they wanted witnesses, you couldn't get involved."

"Oh, you humans! Hopeless lot!

Always wanting someone else

to do what you will not."

"I gave you freedom, will and choice,

I will not interfere, nor save you from your shame...

But know how much it grieves Me

to see you pass the blame."

If each would do a little bit

to right what wrongs you can;

To care for those you see

Then, foolish, foolish Man,

You'd stop calumning Me!"

"Someone do something?

You are someone,

Do Something!"

COOKIN' TIME

Time for enjoying food from the garden, and sometimes even from the lawn. Personally love a meal of hot soup, cold sandwiches and iced lemonade on hot summer days.

ITALIAN DANDELION SOUP

Use mostly the smooth dandelion leaves. The jagged ones are more bitter. If you can't find enough dandelion greens, or if you're such a meticulous yard keeper that you have none, substitute turnip greens, Kale, Swiss Chard, Curly Endive, spinach or young beet greens.

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, chopped, 1 cup

2 carrots, peeled and sliced, 1 cup

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

6 cups chicken broth

1 package (16 ounces) frozen cheese tortellini

4 cups chopped dandelion greens, tough stems discarded

1/4 cup chopped fresh basil leaves

1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

Heat oil in saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion, carrots, garlic, kosher salt and pepper and cook until tender-crisp, about 5 minutes. Add broth and greens and bring to a boil. Add tortellini and cook until tortellini is al dente and greens are tender, 5-7 minutes. Stir in cheese and fresh basil.

GRILLED VEGGIE PACKETS

It's too early to get most of these vegetables from your own garden, but they're in the supermarket, and you can substitute - for example use asparagus in place of green and was beans when it's in season.

1/2 cup canola oil

1/4 cup cider vinegar

1 clove garlic, minced

1 teaspoon seasoned salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1/2 pound green beans, trimmed

1/2 pound yellow wax beans, trimmed

1 red bell pepper, seeded, cut into 1/2-inch strips

1 yellow bell pepper, seeded, cut into 1/2-inch strips

1 zucchini, trimmed, cut into 1/4-inch rounds

1 yellow summer squash, trimmed, cut into 1/4-inch rounds

Preheat grill to medium. Cut 6 12-by-18-inch pieces of heavy-duty foil. In a large bowl, whisk oil, vinegar, garlic, seasoned salt and pepper. Add vegetables; toss to coat. Divide vegetables evenly among foil pieces. Drizzle with any remaining dressing. Fold long sides of foil toward each other, crimping edges to seal. Fold and crimp remaining edges, forming a sealed packet. Place packets, seam side up, on grill. Close grill and cook for 20 minutes. To check for doneness, remove one packet from grill, open carefully and taste a vegetable: It should be crisp-tender. Carefully open packets and serve.

GRILLED ONIONS

Like your burgers with fried onions? When you're cooking on the grill let these tasty and easy grilled onion packets "fry" while you're busy with the rest of the menu. Peel and thinly slice as many onions as you want. Prepare foil as in preceding recipe, and spray with cooking spray. Put a pat or so of butter on the bottom, add the sliced onions, and put more butter on top. Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. (If you want bacon burgers, put some chips of diced bacon on the foil instead of butter before you put on the onions. Salt and pepper generously, and seal up the packets. Put on grill heated to high, or even directly on the hot coals. Cook for about 30 to 35 minutes, turning at least once.

STRAWBERRY ICE CREAM CAKE

No need to turn on the oven. Just buy the cake and then assemble this icy treat, freeze, and bring out proudly at serving time.

1 quart strawberry ice cream

20 vanilla sandwich cookies

1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted

1 pound cake (10.75-ounces),, cut into 1/2-inch slices

16 ounces fresh strawberries, stemmed and sliced

1/3 cup granulated sugar

2 tablespoons orange juice

1 quart vanilla ice cream

Let strawberry ice cream sit 15 minutes at room temperature.

Lightly grease a 10-inch nonstick springform pan and wrap the bottom with aluminum foil. Add cookies to food processor and pulse until coarse crumbs form. Add melted butter and pulse until well blended. Press mixture into bottom and slightly up sides of prepared springform pan. Spread strawberry ice cream evenly over crust. Cover ice cream with pound cake, cutting pieces to cover as much as possible. Freeze 1 hour.

Meanwhile, combine strawberries, sugar and orange juice in heavy-bottomed 2-quart saucepan. Simmer 15 minutes, stirring often. Transfer to heatproof container; cover; refrigerate to cool completely. Let vanilla ice cream sit 15 minutes at room temperature. Remove cake from freezer and spread cooled strawberry sauce over pound cake, leaving a 1-inch edge all the way around. Top with softened vanilla ice cream and spread to cover evenly. Return to freezer for 4 hours. Remove from freezer and let sit 10 minutes; transfer cake to serving plate. If desired, garnish with fresh whipped cream and sliced strawberries.

Thought for the week: "We take the stars from heaven, the red from our mother country, separating it by white stripes, thus showing that we have separated from her, and the white stripes shall go down to posterity, representing our liberty." Quote attributed to George Washington, sentiments shared by most Americans. As Alvin Owlsley once said, "That piece of red, white and blue bunting means five thousand years of struggle upwards. It is the full-grown flower of ages of fighting for liberty. It is the century plant of human hope in bloom."

(This column is written by Shirley Prudhomme of Crivitz. Views expressed are her own and are in no way intended to be an official statement of the opinions of Peshtigo Times editors and publishers. She may be contacted by phone at 715-291-9002 or by e-mail to shirleyprudhommechickadee@yahoo.com.)

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