When we built our house I knew nothing about what I needed to tell the carpenters to get my perfect kitchen when it was finished. The carpenter built the cabinets in place but I didn’t know what the height should have been. As I have gotten older I can see several things that I should have thought about and asked about.
When I talked to our carpenter about the kitchen I told him I wanted a baking area in the corner of the kitchen. Our kitchen is an L shape with another turn to the right with more cabinets and then the fridge. The long part of the kitchen runs N-S and then the left turn towards the west, and then a short turn to the north where the fridge sets at the end of the cabinets.
I wanted the baking area in the corner where it made the right turn back to the north where there are more cabinets and then the fridge. The baking corner where the cabinet makes the turn back to the north would have been the perfect place to drop the counter down a few inches for stirring at a comfortable height. Even dropping it 6 inches would have been great for a woman’s height.
I remember telling the carpenter that I wanted the baking area cabinets and counter to be lower so it is easier to stir things in a bowl and pour them into the pans. I am 5’6″ tall, but even the normal cabinet height is a little too tall for me. Our counter tops hit me at the waist and to be comfortable to mix things they should be a little lower. The carpenter just put them all the same height and they are perfect for my husband but not for me.
But the carpenter didn’t bother to check on that or ask me along the way, he just kept doing things like he always did. Since they were not already built it was a perfect opportunity to get it right for my height.
So every time I bake and don’t want to use the Kitchen Aid mixer, I have to take the bowl over to the kitchen sink, on the other side of the kitchen, to mix all the ingredients together. It is an inconvenience because all my ingredients I bake with are on the other side of the room if I need something.
When I came out one night to check on the progress the carpenter was still in the house working and there was a space between the lower cabinet doors and the lazy Susan door in the corner of the baking area. I asked him what he was going to do with that space. He said he was going to put another pull out towel rack there since it was about the same width.
I asked him why would I want a towel rack clear across the room from the sink? All I got was a blank look from him. Then I told him what I wanted in that space and showed him a picture. I wanted three little shallow pull out drawers that went clear back to the back of the cabinet to put spices and baking items in.
I could see the light bulb come on as he thought about that idea. I bet the three little shallow drawers showed up in a lot of the houses out here after that. Those three little drawers were the best part of the kitchen when we moved in. The little narrow and shallow drawers are the perfect place to keep the vanilla and all the little containers and bottles of ingredients you use for baking.
The corner where those three little drawers are is the spot I wanted the cabinet lowered for a baking area. The higher kitchen cabinets didn’t bother me too much when I was younger even though I would have liked them lower. I just learned to mix things at a height that was about 4-6 inches higher than I would have liked. But now with arthritis in my shoulders and elbows it sure would be nice if the counters were lower especially for hand mixing.
The three little drawers were the best part of the kitchen until my husband built pull out drawers to house the items that usually reside under the counters by the stove and I love them. All my pots and pans are on those pull out drawers. They work great and I love having the pots and pans on them.
He built some for the baking area also for the cookie sheets and the sugar and flour containers or anything heavy that I don’t want in the higher cabinets. Now I don’t have to get on my knees and dig in the back of the shelf for something I need to cook or bake with.
The electrician asked me one night, when I stopped in to look things over in the kitchen: where do you want the lights over the vanity in the bathroom. This was the vanity that my husband who is 6′ tall would use for shaving. I told him about eye level would be perfect to shine light on his face. I am sure he had met my husband but I reminded him that he was 6 ‘tall.
The electrician must have been about 6’6″. He put the lights at his eye level. When I stopped in the next night he happened to be working in the kitchen. I went into the bathroom and looked at where the lights were. Then I went and got him.
I told him again my husband was 6’ and that those lights would be at the top of his head and casting shadows onto his face when he shaved. Yes, they were eye level for the electrician but way to high for my husband. So I told him they had to come down about 6 inches so they would be right for my husband when he shaved. He moved the lights down to the level we needed the next day.
It might be fun to build another house now that I know you have to stay on top of the details everyday to get things like you want them. But I am not sure I could handle dealing with the aggravation at my age to get a perfect kitchen and bath. To contact Sandy: therapy [email protected]
A PERFECT KITCHEN and BATH
“Aggie Bets”
This week Kansans joined the legalized betting crowd. The legalized betting law went into effect and, it seems to me, all kinds of folks — from pinstripers to redneckers, from Baby Boomers to Gen x’ers — are all agog over the entertainment and fiscal windfall that Kansas is going to experience.
No longer will Kansans have to travel to take their chances on winning a fortune — big or small. They can now take those risks right from the comfort of their living rooms via TVs, computers, electronic tablets, and smart phones.
It’s as easy as signing up with a betting service company, opening an account, depositing a bit of cash as seed money, then placing astute bets, and watching the money electronically roll back into your account.
The key is making those astute bets. Betting opportunities are seemingly endless. You can bet on all kinds of pro and collegiate sports, plus race horses.
You can choose from an array of kinds of bets. A short list includes: money line bets, point spread bets, over/under bets, parlay bets, teaser bets, prop bets, middle bets, and futures bets.
I don’t understand how any of them work, but, I suppose, it would be wise to understand the bets you’re making before you make them.
And, to make it easier, the betting services are enticing folks to sign up for betting by offering a bunch of free bets just to get you started — or hooked.
Well, I described all of the above information about legalized betting in Kansas, but I don’t think the betting arena is nearly wide enuf or deep enuf.
Kansas is missing out by not including it’s biggest industry in the gambling frenzy. What am I talking about? Well, its agriculture
Farmers and ranchers are the biggest gamblers in all of Kansas. They bet (risk) their livelihoods every year by plunking untold millions of dollars into growing and harvesting their crops and animals. And, they do it in advance, not know what the weather will be, what the markets will be, and what the political climate will be.
All those unknowns and intangibles don’t keep them from making their annual bets. If they win, they get to stay in bizness for another year. If they lose, trying times are upon them.
Well, I think it’s high time for “Aggie Bets” to be legal in Kansas. All the “betting sports” in Kansas should be as eager to wager their money on the outcomes of agriculture as they are on sports. Both have a lot of unknowns and risks — and potential nice payouts for winning.
Just think about all the betting possibilities in agriculture. How about betting on the size of next year’s Kansas wheat crop, or soybean crop, or corn crop. The folks who come the closest to the number, get to split the money in the betting pool — minus 10% deducted from the pool to go back to the Kansas farmers who grew the crops.
How about over/under betting on the total dollars of Kansas foodstuffs that China will buy in the next 12 months?
Or, an “Aggie Bet” on how much money Kansas farmers will spend on new farm tractors and equipment in December, 2022, after harvest?
Or, a bet on how much rain will fall in Pratt County in July and August?Or a bet on how much the Kansas beef cow herd will shrink because of drought or poor markets? Or, a bet on how many hundredweights of milk will be produced by the best milk cow in Kansas during a 9-month lactation?
Or a bet on the average soybean yield/acre in Cherokee County, Kansas, in 2022? Or the average irrigated corn yield in Ford County?
It boggles the mind about many “Aggie Bets” are possible. The opportunity for eager betters should be mouth watering for them. And, there’s a big bonus. Think how much of a practical education on agriculture the betters will gain as they experience the risks with farmers and ranchers?
So, I’m hoping that enuf Kansas legislators and the Governor hear about my “Aggie Bets” proposal that they will call a special session of the legislature to work out all the details. It shouldn’t be as easy as the bill they passed on sports wagering.
However, the key point is that 10% of the “Aggie Bets” wagering pools must be earmarked to go back to farmers and ranchers. It would be their “pay out” for taking the risk of growing food in the first place.
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On the home-front, my tomato crop is bountiful. I’ve “tomato trees” more than 7-feet high and they are producing like crazy. Nevah tells me she’s “about done” canning tomato juice, so I’m giving away “maters” to my neighbors.
The apple crop is surprisingly good this year. We picked a bushel of yellow apples and make 13 quarts of apple sauce, plus Nevah froze enough apple slices to make a half-dozen apple pies this winter.
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Words of wisdom for the week comes from The Little Red Hen Ranch, a reader and producer in central Kansas: “The difference between the Titanic and California is that the Titanic sank with its lights on.”
Have a good ‘un.
The old cabin
Adam Pracht and Caroline de Filippis were recently hired to boost the presence and import of the Lindsborg Old Mill and Swedish Heritage Museum. Pracht is marketing and communications director; de Filippis is director of community development.
When the news of their hiring came out, recollection kicked in and quick as a snap, up popped the old cabin and how, long ago, Emma Sundberg’s baby sister was born there in a terrible blizzard.
Many stories linger at the Mill and Museum. They impress the fabric of community, its early footings. They are from a cache of old times, of living long ago and the lessons it tells. Lenore Lynham, the Museum’s director has been telling them for decades; Pracht and de Filippis are here to advance the message.
The cabin, built in 1870, sits west of the Roller Mills and the Museum’s main building under a canopy secured with huge posts and concrete pilings. The canopy was finished in June 2006. That was when Emma Sundberg and her cousins Lois Howe and Bob Lundstrom and a friend, Don Heline, met me there to talk about it, a place where they had begun. It is one of the earliest surviving structures from the settlement of the community.
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Emma ‘s youngest sister, Bonnie Jean, was born in the cabin during a terrible blizzard in early March, 1931. Emma’s mother Anna had five children at home, two boys and three girls.
The cabin is one room and smaller than an old garage. It was built of hand-hewn logs with dovetail corners, and secured with wood pegs. The cousins’ grandparents, Almond and Emma (Flohr) Palmquist were the third couple to move into the cabin, in 1904, two miles west and 3½ miles south of Lindsborg.
Almond and Emma had 12 children, six boys and six girls. Emma’s father, George, was the first. Bob Lundstrom’s mother, Anna, born in 1883, was the second. Lois Howe’s mother, born in 1905, was number 11 and was named Elva which, Lois explained, was Swedish for “eleventh.”
Don Heline’s mother (Esther) taught at Harper School in the late ‘30s and the Helines lived in the cabin, about a mile west of the school. Lois, Don and Emma were among his mother’s students.
Emma said the blizzard on her sister’s birth day was full blown by mid-day and blinding; her father called Doc Blake at Marquette and told him mother was ready to deliver. Doc was worried about the seven-mile trip and called Wally Hawkinson, who maintained the roads in Harper Township. Wally got out in his machine and graded the way for the doctor.
Wally stayed at the cabin until Bonnie Jean was born. Then he went ahead of Doc to break the drifts for Doc’s return to Marquette.
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The old cabin was abandoned in Harper Township not long after Don’s family moved away in 1940. Earlier, there were additions to the cabin but by 1955 the place was long abandoned, the additions deteriorated and torn away, the original one-room cabin left to the elements.
The cabin was scheduled for demolition but in 1960 the McPherson Lions Club saved it, put it in a park and in 1963 the cabin was moved to Lindsborg and the Old Mill grounds. Over time the structure suffered the wear of nature and the cruelties of vandals. In the early 2000s, Emma Sundberg and her cousins and Don worked to resurrect the cabin, protect it with the canopy, amplify its significance.
A collection of old tools from the era lies a clearing behind the old cabin. Farms were small then. The implements now seem pocket-size. Among them a seven-blade disc, one and two-bottom plows, sickle bar mowers, a scraper, cultivator, drag harrow, hay rake, seed planter, parts of an old wheat thresher, and more. The tools are from a time even before doctors – if there were doctors – could motor in a storm to a woman in labor, when blizzards froze men in their wagons, when drought cracked skin and soil.
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Bob Lundstrom,86, died in 2012. Don Heline died a year later, age 88. Emma, 92, died in 2015. Lois Howe died last May at 96.
Their old cabin lives on, a place from times of shelters rising on the plain, of moving up from the settlers’ dugouts and sod huts. It’s one of history’s parcels at the Mill and Museum, a rich storehouse of heritage in Lindsborg and the Smoky Valley.
Adam Pracht and Caroline de Filippis, and Lenore Lynham, the Museum’s director, will care for that history, help us to understand more of its lessons.
Beans, Sweet n’ Sour
As the norm we’ve tucked ourselves away for the holiday weekend. We love the tourists, but when it’s a holiday, especially summer, we stay pretty close to home.
With the lower gas prices people are moving about more than they were 2 months ago. And of course the beastly weather ‘seems’ to be behind us.
This past week it seemed like we were eating out every other day, well, we were!
We celebrated a 21st birthday on Monday and a carry-in dinner on Wednesday. We dined Monday at the ‘la Hacienda’, which is located a bit behind and to the side of Cracker Barrel in Branson. Probably my ‘new’ favorite Mexican food.
They had me as soon as I spotted the cloth napkins. Service was good, and the culinary presentation was not overdone. It may be hard to believe, but I’m not wrapped up in fancy dinner plates, with lots of foo foo. Nope, it’s all about quality & taste for this cook. Of course, I want the plate to look nice, that’s a requirement. (They serve fresh guacamole, tableside.) Next time though, I’m trying their calamari.
For the second time I’ve enjoyed the featured recipe. At the carry-in dinner on Wednesday our neighbors brought the beans. They are just enough ‘different’ that I am getting hooked on them. Me, the gal who never uses recipes for beans, (unless I’m forced to). This type of bean presentation is definitely a northern thing, as you will find in the origination of the recipe. Baked bean dishes with ‘sweet’ added are definitely not a southern recipe. Sometimes I think I could make a different baked bean dish every week to carry in my lunch.
I’ve put a great deal of notes in the recipe itself this week. So be sure and read all the additional comments. I’m still searching for the recipe I set for my new peach jam dish. I do not look forward to writing it all over again.
I am really enjoying the 3-day weekend. I was wiped and the extra day has meant some much needed rest. Embrace each day friends, I look forward to next week. Simply Yours, The Covered Dish. www.thecovereddish.com
Beans, Sweet n’ Sour
This week’s recipe was passed to me by our neighbor, Linda. It shows it originated from ‘Taste of Home’ magazine, in 2011. Of course, there’s going to be ‘Debbie’ recommendations and adaptions as I review the recipe within my column. Keep in mind, the focus is on sweet n’ sour. We don’t want to modify to the point the base foundation is lost.
Sweet N’ Sour Beans
Barbara Short, Mena, Arkansas
8 strips bacon, diced
2 medium onions, sliced as thin as possible
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground mustard
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 (28 oz.) can baked beans, (recipe called for undrained, I would drain)
1 (16 oz.) can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 (15 oz.) can of lima beans, rinsed and drained*
1 (15 oz.) can pinto beans, rinsed and drained
1 (15.5 oz.) can black-eyed peas, rinsed and drained
In a large skillet, cook bacon over medium heat. Place bacon on paper towels to drain and reserve the drippings. Sauté the onions in the drippings until they are almost to the caramelization stage. Stir the sugar, vinegar, salt, and mustard and garlic powder into the onions and bring to a boil. The onions will fool you in the outcome because they look like thinly sliced cabbage!
Using a 5 quart slow cooker, combine all the canned products and add to the onion mixture, stir in bacon; mixing well. Cover and cook about 3 hours in a slow cooker over medium heat.
The contributor states she came across the recipe from a friend in Alaska, then to her in old Mexico; where she lived for 5 years. Hats off to Barbara on a unique dish.
*For flavor and color I prefer to use about 1 1/2 cups of frozen & thawed green limas versus the canned giant white ones.
Beans that run across the dinner plate are one of my pet peeves. Thus the reason why I drained the baked beans. One might also consider baking this dish in the oven instead of the slow cooker, for a tighter outcome (350 degrees).
Here are a few suggestions I might implement. For more depth in flavor switch the sugar to a dark brown sugar. This means it will have more molasses in the dish. For more bulk add pulled pork, (not smoked) or thinly sliced & grilled kielbasa sausage. I would probably bake it in the oven versus the slow cooker.
The only thing I haven’t quite figured out is how to garnish the top. There’s a great deal of color with all the different beans but I still want something to accent the presentation.
Play around, I’ve enjoyed this dish twice now, presented by my neighbor, Linda, and every time I find myself enjoying it more and more. (So glad she let me bring home the extras this past week!) I could take this for lunch twice a week, as long as I could keep the bean repercussions at bay!!!
Trees often recover but need TLC
The summer heat seems to be sticking around. Hot weather can be damaging to young trees but so can cold temperatures. The good thing is this can be prevented.
Many young, smooth, thin-barked trees such as honey locusts, fruit trees, ashes, oaks, maples, lindens, and willows are susceptible to sunscald and bark cracks. Sunscald normally develops on the south or southwest side of the tree during late winter. Sunny, warm winter days may heat the bark to relatively high temperatures.
Research done in Georgia has shown that the southwest side of the trunk of a peach tree can be 40 degrees warmer than shaded bark. This warming action can cause a loss of cold hardiness of the bark tissue resulting in cells becoming active. These cells then become susceptible to lethal freezing when the temperature drops at night. The damaged bark tissue becomes sunken and discolored in late spring. Damaged bark will eventually crack and slough off.
Trees often recover but need TLC — especially watering during dry weather. Applying a light- colored tree wrap from the ground to the start of the first branches can protect recently planted trees. This should be done in October to November and removed the following March. Failure to remove the tree wrap in the spring can prove detrimental to the tree.
