Patty and Holly, no, Holly and Patty

I've just got to say thank you for the nice comments on my last post, and Gale, who had never left a comment before...thank you so much! Your comment sure touched my heart.

The Holly trees are beautiful this year...

and were even prettier a few days ago. Poppy has reminded me every day..."you better get a picture of the holly berries before the birds eat them all".

First the Robins came...hundreds of them filling up on the red berries before moving on. Now the Cardinals fill the holly trees but that's okay.

Back when we cleared a spot in the woods to build the cabin, we intentionally left all the holly trees and all the cedar trees...

and in the dead of winter when other trees are bare, the hollies and cedars are dark green and beautiful. The green trees in the background are hollies and cedars too.

You probably remember my cousin Patty, don't you? Patty, who gave me the old cupboard, and the old pie safe, plus many many other things too numerous to mention...well, Patty called me last week...

by the way, this is cousin Pat and her husband Mike, (the nice looking couple on the left). Anyhow, Patty said, "every morning I get up and get started on something. This morning I decided to sit here and read this old church cookbook."

It's one of those cookbooks put together by members of the church. This church is located in a small community called Ether ...

near where my mother Jewel, and Pat's mother Agathel, were born and raised...along with their sisters, Aunt Bass, Aunt Berlie, Aunt Martha, Aunt Ruby, Aunt Macie, and Aunt Eva, oh and brothers, Uncle Henry and Uncle Charlie. these folks...

Front row is Aunt Eva, Jewel (mama), Aunt Martha, Aunt Bass

Back row is Aunt Macie, Aunt Agathel (Pat's mom), Aunt Berlie, Aunt Ruby, Uncle Henry, Uncle Charlie

So the old cookbook contains recipes and tips from relatives and friends from all those folks. The main thing Pat called about were the hundreds of tips and ideas listed in the back of the old cookbook. "I've just got to share these with you", she said. Some are really good, some a bit strange, some funny...

Not sure how easy these will be to read...Oh, I would be overwhelmed if someone put all this in front of me to read so please...

Some of these are pretty amazing. It's easy to tell there were no microwave ovens around at the time. Patty thought this would make a good blog post...and I agree.

Better get up from here...looks like some of the sweetie pies around here played too hard today...