Missing the Hodgepodge

Look who stopped in to see Grandma and Grandpa!
Look who wants to pull off his socks.

Joyce (From This Side of the Pond) of Hodgepodge fame, is taking a much-deserved break this week. But for those of us who are rigid and inflexible, it's hard to get out of the Hodgepodge Wednesday mode, so I'm answering a few questions that popped into my mind for today.

1. What were your favorite games when you were a child?

Starlight, Moonlight; Pump Pump Pull Away.  Telling ghost stories with the cousins and scaring each other to death; Starlight Moonlight was played outdoors at night. Obviously, we played these outdoor games in the summertime and saved the ghost stories for winter.

From Answers.com:

The person who is "IT" is called the ghost. He/She hides in the dark someplace where he won't easily be seen. All others stay at home base (usually the steps of our house). They chant:

"One O'Clock, Two O' Clock, Three O' Clock Rock, (I don't think we ever said 'rock.')
Four O'Clock, Five O' Clock, Six O' Clock Rock,
Seven O' Clock, Eight O' Clock, Nine O' Clock Rock
Ten O' Clock, Eleven O' Clock, Twelve O' Clock Midnight,
We hope we do, we hope we might, we hope we see a ghost tonight!"

They then break up searching for the ghost. If they see him/her, they can run back to base. The ghost can either chase them or stay hidden to try to get someone else. All must see the ghost. If the ghost catches you, your it for the next game, in other words, the ghost.

Rules for Pump Pump Pull Away, from Yahoo: 

"Pump, pump, pull away" consisted of two teams, each lined up on opposite sides of a field or playground. At the signal, "Pump-pump- pullaway--Come away or I'll pull you away", one side attempted to run through their opponents and reach the opposite end of the field without being tagged by the defending side. Players tagged joined the opponent's team. Each side took turns at running through the opposition until all players were on one side. 

Did you play those games??

2.  Are you a gardener?

My best garden year

A distant memory

I guess I wouldn't call myself a gardener. I'm an enthusiastic planter and a harvester. I dislike the in-between stuff, like the real work of pulling the most robust of all perennials, the weeds. I once heard someone call it 'picking weeds,' which is much more accurate. The carpet worked great for a few years, but this year it's been removed and I'm not planning nearly as ambitious a garden as seen above. Carrots, green beans, snap peas, tomatoes, peppers, and some herbs are about all we're putting in this year. The other stuff just isn't worth the effort. I get tired of dragging sprouted and squishy potatoes out of the basement in the springtime.

3.  With Wisconsin's notorious winters, why do you stay here?

Winters keep Mr. C. in shape. See what I mean? But actually, the reason we stay in Wisconsin is that most of our family is here or nearby and that we love Wisconsin from April through October. Every place has its disadvantages. Ours is the long, long, bitterly-cold winter. (I can say that almost cheerfully, now that spring has arrived). Still, I'd rather sit beside the fire than have to sit beside an air conditioner in long, long, beastly-hot summers.

And this is another reason we stay in Wisconsin. I never tire of this view.

4.  Tell us about your problem with clutter and how you plan to resolve it.

I'm not sure why I'm so publicly admitting to clutter, but...I hate clutter and yet find myself a victim of clutter. Don't you love how I can declare victimhood over a situation I've created for myself? I figure if everyone else is doing it these days, I might as well too. Anyway, I just visited a website that had '34 ingenious ways to declutter' and will follow some of them. This morning I discarded extra, hardly-ever-used bed sheets. And now that I've done that, someone will probably show up at my door with a bloody wound and I won't have the potential bandages I could have used to save his life.

5.  Do you have family reunions? Are you the one to organize them?

August of 2013 is the last family reunion we had where everyone was present. It was wonderful! Other years, we've had the reunion the beginning of August but not all are there. I'm hoping for a full house again this August. Plus, we have two babies, a few additional instant grandkids, and a daughter-in-law who have joined the family since the photo above. Yes, I organize them. I build it around my birthday. Isn't that a clever thing to do. lol

6. What's your most recent book purchase? Fiction or Non-fiction?

Non-fiction is not Tuppence's favorite

One of the disappointments (and there are very few) of my life is that somewhere along the line I became an audio reader. It probably had to do with the year I spent in Bolivia, working with Wycliffe Bible Translators, doing proofreading. I pick up typos in everyone's writing (except for my own, occasionally), and that attention to detail, even to the voices in my head, are what slow me down. Still, every book I read is entertaining, and like a movie, since those voices are in my head. I think there's no hope for me to get over that bad habit at this age (I've read almost every book on speed reading), so I'll just keep reading... and enjoying it.

My most recent purchases are A Case for the Psalms by N.T. Wright and Hilary Mantel's Bring Up The Bodies, part of the Wolf Hall series. Have you been watching that on PBS? Anyway, I purchased it on my Kindle because it's inconvenient to try to read hardcover or paperbacks in the dark. So how many books do you have going at the same time?

Almost always my preference is non-fiction, unless it's really good. Hilary Mantel's books have had rave reviews.

7.  What's happening on the farm these days?

 Getting ready to plant corn

16 row corn planter

Before 

  

We rent out our crop land to a guy with amazing equipment. I'm glad I didn't have to pay for it. The equipment is just enormous. I believe the biggest corn planter my dad ever had was a 4-row planter.

 After - April 28 2015 
It took about an hour to plant the corn.

8.  How often do you go shopping?

via

I hate shopping, except maybe for grocery shopping, and I don't actually enjoy that because I don't like standing in lines. Although the Mall of America is about 2 hours away, I think I've been there once. I take no pleasure in trying to find things to buy. I don't understand how any mall, even the small one in our area, can support so many clothing stores. Most of my shopping is done on Amazon. I don't buy many new clothes. I tend to wear the same comfortable and familiar things. So the answer is, I seldom go shopping.

Okay, that's it. I've now got the Hodgepodge bug out of my system for another week. You can be grateful that Joyce will bring it back next week with her much better questions.

Mr. C. and Jazzie
Running away from home

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Have a wonderful Wednesday, friends!

 

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