FLOUR

HALLOWEEN MEMORY

I have never forgotten how our next-door neighbors made Halloween special for every kid in the neighborhood.  They were an elderly couple who apparently spent a lot of time preparing for this event.  It wasn't until years later that I recognized just how much time.  When you would go to their front door and ring the bell, they appeared and you rang out with your "Trick or Treat!"  Instead of bringing candy to the door, each child was invited into their house!  The first time that happened I was really small in stature and relatively new to this outing.  I really didn't know what to think.  But was I surprised when they led my brother, sister, and me into their dining room.  There on the immaculately polished and decorated table were platters of cookies, brownies, popcorn balls, fudge, and divinity - all homemade, and in that period of my life many years ago, completely acceptable to receive. I could not believe this sight!  We were told to choose anything we wanted and to help ourselves.  It was not that I didn't appreciate the suckers and bubble gum put into my brown decorated paper bag by the other neighbors, but the effort put forth by the elderly couple meant so much to a little girl.

In honor of our neighbors of long ago, I am sharing a Brownie recipe from my grandmother's 1943  DeLuxe Edition of Better Homes & Gardens Cook  Book.

Brownies

1/3 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
2 well-beaten eggs
2 1-ounce squares unsweetened chocolate, melted
3/4 cup cake flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup broken nut meats
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Thoroly cream shortening and sugar; add eggs and beat well.  Add chocolate and blend thoroly.  Add sifted dry ingredients and beat until smooth.  Stir in nut meats and vanilla extract.  Pour into waxed-paper-lined 8-inch square pan.  Bake in moderate oven (350 degrees) about 35 minutes.  Cut in bars.  Makes 1 1/2 dozen bars.


FLOWER

PACK YOUR BAGS!! 

Does anyone recognize the brown earthy object in this picture?  Resembling two cone shapes glued at their bases, it is the casing for something called a bagworm.  My husband and I have spent several evenings this month pulling these bags off one of our beautiful pine trees so maybe we will not lose it like the Colorado Blue Spruce shown in the second picture below.  If anyone has ever experienced these on their trees or shrubbery, they can be pulled from the limbs, but are more secure than you think.  Wearing garden or work gloves, we would start looking for them each night and made second, third, and sometimes fourth passes in the same areas just trying not to miss one bag.  Even though one could remove these bags with your bare hands, we chose to wear gloves since we were, (yuck) removing worm bags from a tree, and because of working with the stiff needled pine limbs.

From the website listed below, I have learned that the life of bagworms and the destruction they cause is a process.  The worms landed on a second pine tree in our yard this past spring and began to make their bags while they ate.  This took time beginning from when they landed until the end of summer.  At summer's end my husband and I found the bags and we hope our decision to pull them off ourselves will go a long way in halting another generation and saving our tree.  We will probably continue to check the tree for bags until the weather keeps us from it.

We wish we would have noticed the first tree in time, but we missed it, not having any experience with bagworms.  We also know next spring when it is time for bagworm eggs to hatch, we could use an approved spray on the tree, even though we would have removed all the bags we could find. Hopefully we will still have a beautiful tree, and another experience in gardening. 

www.pestproducts.com/bag-worm.htm#Bag