by jphilo | Aug 12, 2014 | Top Ten Tuesday
Modern conveniences make our lives so much easier. Here are ten I’m determined to not take for granted.
10. Door knobs. Laura Ingalls Wilder did her darndest to make latch strings sound cozy in the Little House series. But have you ever tried to work one? Door knobs are a vast improvement.
9. Comfy shoes. If your job doesn’t require much standing, this one sounds pretty lame. But teachers, sales clerks, nurses, and other people who stand most of the day never take comfy shoes for granted.
8. Bedsteads. The older a person gets, the more a bed on legs is appreciated. For people who live where creepy, crawlies consider your castle their castle, this appreciation comes much sooner.
7. Gardening gloves. A welcome replacement for fingernail brushes that scrub the skin raw and still leave dirt under fingernails.
6. Heating and cooling units. They beat chopping wood all winter and sweating all summer to pieces.
5. Running water. Need I say more?
4. The garden hose. As contrary and twisty these snaky green wonders can be, they are much better than packing pails of water hither and yon across the lawn.
3. Drain strainers. If you’ve ever poked a plumber’s snake down a bathtub drain, you know why this one’s on the list.
2. Gas and electric stoves. How did cooks in the olden days regulate the temperature to bake cookies and pies with a wood stove? That’s a skill I’m grateful not to have learned.
1. Window screens. Can you imagine the days before before air conditioning and window screens when people had two options in the heat of the summer? Open the windows to cool off the house and share your bedroom with hoards of skeeters, flies and other flying pests. Or shut the windows and cook all night in solitude. The thought makes me grateful every time I open the windows to let the breeze in our house.
What modern convenience do you not take for granted? Leave a comment.
Photo Credit: Gualberto107 at www.freedigitalphotos.net
by jphilo | Jan 25, 2010 | Walking Down the Gravel Road
I didn’t expect last Tuesday to be my swan song. I bundled up and put on my Yak Tracks before venturing outside for another foggy, morning walk. Our little gravel road was spectacularly beautify. The hoarfrost, the thickest I’ve ever seen it, coated every branch, every blade of grass long enough to reach through the snow, every fence line. My walk took a long time, because I paused often to photograph the once-in-a-lifetime scenery.
Now I’m glad I did because walking outdoors has been impossible ever since. On Wednesday, an ice storm hit. A half inch of ice replaced the hoarfrost and turned the great outdoors into a skating rink for three days. Our gravel road is still treacherous, though the paved roads and sidewalks improved over the weekend. But last night the wind picked up, an unexpected four inches of snow fell, drifts are blocking the driveway and road, and visibility is terrible.
This may sound like old-timer talk, but this winter reminds me of the ground breaking winter of 1967-68. We had so many snow days in northwest Iowa, the state finally said we didn’t have to make them up. The snow was so deep the school board finally rescinded the dress code which prohibited female teachers and student from wearing slacks to schools, though we still couldn’t wear jeans. And they also quit requiring teachers to go to report to school when it was called off for students. I am not making this up!
It also brings to mind The Long Winter, one of the books in the Laura Ingalls Wilder series. This book recounts a terrible winter in the late 1800s, shortly after the completion of the railroad into De Smet, South Dakota. The winter was so bad, the trains couldn’t get through for months and the townspeople nearly starved to death.
When I read the series aloud to the kids when they were little (which we did more than once), Hiram refused to listen to The Long Winter. “It’s too depressing,” he objected. “Please, skip over it and go onto the next one.” Back then I objected to his censorship, but now that we’re living Long Winter: The Sequel in real time, his suggestion is worthy of resurrection.
What do you think? Should we skip over this season and move on to the next one in the series? I’m game. If you’re with me on this one, leave a comment about when we should fast forward to spring.
