Tag Archives: Eve

Preserving Food

Last week my mom, who is 83, called to see if I wanted 3 buckets of peaches, or did I want to go to her house to help her can. As I live in an apartment with a bigger kitchen, and I helped her finish
Canned Peaches
canning over 125 quarts of peaches, 14 pints of applesauce and 8 pints of peach jam, all in less than 24 hours. Then we drove the two hours home.

I have helped my mom can fruits and vegetables since I was little. We stand side by side, peeling, cutting, cooking, and stuffing vegetables or fruit into pint or quart jars, and almost all the food has come from their garden. Mom and dad are in their 80s and still grow a big garden to can and share with their kids and grandkids. Each year they say they don’t plan to grow as much next year, but they always do.

Throughout history men and women have grown gardens and worked to preserve the food for the the seasons when things don’t grow. I am certain Eve began her life on earth picking food to preserve for those cold or dry seasons when food isn’t growing. Much of her life during the growing season was spent much like it is for my mom, picking and preserving food for her family to enjoy during the year.

A big difference for Eve was her methods of preservation. During those first years, all she had was woven baskets and gourds. No glass jars, no pressure cooker, no water bath. How could she preserve enough food for her family?

She learned to dry the foods she needed in the sun. She would need to protect the food from insects and animals. I’m sure she learned to use smoke to help dry things and keep the flies away. It still had to be a challenge for her until her children grew old enough to help.

Sometimes I think life is difficult, and it is. When I remember the difficulties our ancestors had, just to survive, I am grateful for all they did, especially Eve.

Ancient Matriarchs: Eve, First Matriarch coming soon.

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Early Fire

Even authors of fiction find a need to research for their work. As I have been writing for nearly two years, I have found many things I don’t know. I thought it would be easy to write about ancient times, imagining what life may have been like in those earliest years of our planet. So little is written about those days, most of it must be imagined, or so I thought.
Then I began to write and found I needed help. I had no idea how they used fire, or made unleavened bread, or tanned hides, or other things. I went to the web, searching. I found the answers to these and other questions. It’s wonderful to have the Internet to do research.
Did you ever have to use the card catalog or the magazine indexes? I did. Research only happened in libraries, with books and magazines. Never as easily as now, with computers and the Internet.
I found some amazing things, and some even went into my book.
Fire was used for heat and cooking, as you would expect. It hardened wooden tools and kept wild animals away. They say early people used fire to drive animals in the hunt, drive bees from the hive, and grasshoppers into cooking pits. Fires were used to clear away growth to find bulbs for food and brush to ease travel, and promote seed growth. Heat from the fire straightened or bent weapons as well as breaking stones for weapons.
What do you use fire for? Is there something you want to know more about? Leave me a message. I’ll share.

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Mother’s Love

I saw this great meme this week on Facebook showing a cow nuzzling her calf. The words were poignant: “No language can express the power and beauty and heroism of a mother’s love.” – Edwin Hubbell Chapin

cow loving calf

It says a lot, doesn’t it? Language cannot express the love of a mother. Mothers love their offspring unconditionally and willingly go above and beyond in their care for their children, to the point of giving their lives for their children. Find a picture of any mother and her baby, animal or human, and your first thoughts will be, “Aww, sweet,” unless you are hardened.

Moms work to ensure their children have a better life than they did, if at all possible. They want them to have great memories of their childhood. I know I feel especially great when my daughter calls to tell me she did something special with her kids and remembers when we did similar things when she was young.

Nurturing of our children is almost hardwired in women. Until the past few decades, women would not brag about destroying (a nicer way to say murdering) their children when they could not control their urges enough to prevent pregnancy. I hear what you are saying, “What about a woman who is raped?”

Incest and rape are beyond a woman’s control. I sort of understand not wanting to carry the reminder of this. But most women who participate in abortion do it for “choice”, meaning they choose to have unprotected sex, while not wanting to accept the consequences of their actions. Adults learn that they are responsible for their actions, particularly their sexual activities. Murder is not an acceptable response to pregnancy due to unprotected sex.

Women who had abortions would sneak around in dark alleys to find someone to perform an abortion. It has never been good for women. For the children, it has always been worse. Mothers generally survive the procedure. The children NEVER survive. The procedure may be basically painless for the mother; for the child it is excruciatingly painful.

In the past weeks, Planned Parenthood has been charged with illegally selling body parts from these murdered infants, even working to protect the parts they plan to sell. I was physically ill when I watched the undercover video.

It would seem to me most of the staff of Planned Parenthood are single women, for how can a mother fall this far? It is hard enough to understand a mother stooping to destroy her child. But, to murder a child in order to “harvest” their body parts? How could a mother do such a thing?

Animals protect their young. Wild herd animals push their young to the center to protect them from predators. Predator moms hide their young and fight to protect them. Farm and domestic animals care for their young and protect them from danger. Can humanity say we are as good as animals?

In my fiction novel, Eve, First Matriarch, motherhood is important to Eve. Young were the future of this earth, both human and animals. No one would consider destroying a child for selfish purposes. Each life was precious then. Life should be precious today, for everyone.

What do you think? Do you agree or disagree? Why? Let me know.

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Stargazing, Then and Now

I share a favorite pass time with Eve. I imagine her and Adam enjoyed time together, sitting and watching the moon and stars appear each evening. Watching stars together would help them feel confident that this new world would continue to be the same. Connecting the dots between the stars lets us imagine animals and brave warriors. Certainly Eve and Adam found images in their night skies. Watching them in the evening, finding those images where there were, or close to that position each night would give them comfort and confidence.
Later, in the history of our world, falling stars were seen as omens. I do not see our first parents needing omens to guide them. However, in my imagination they were aware of meteors streaking through the night skies, perhaps even on evenings after momentous occasions.
I love the fall when the Perseid Meteor shower passes through our orbit, sending “falling stars” to brighten the sky. Often, when you live in a city, like I do, it is difficult to see falling stars unless you travel a distance away from the lights to see the tiny specks of burning meteors.
One year there were so many my students were excited to share with me the falling stars they saw during the day. They were visible that year both in the night and during the day. I sat on the steps of my front porch and watched the points of light fall through our atmosphere one afternoon. I love the memory.
I still love to watch the stars, especially during meteor showers. I look forward to the next one. Maybe it will be bright enough I can see it in this city I live in now, that is known for its bright lights. This year, we can plan to see the Perseid shower from August 11-14. With the moon waning, they should be easy to see this year, maybe they will be bright enough to see during the day, too. I hope so!
Tell me, do you love to watch the stars, or is there something else you prefer to watch? What do you think Eve would have used to find confidence in her new world? Tell me. Maybe I’ll add it to my book: EVE, First Matriarch.

I look forward to hearing from you.

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