School Days Part I

My blog friend, Tina, is from Abraham, another tiny Millard County town adjacent to my home town of Hinckley. Her most recent blog post reminiscing about her school bus driver, brought back memories of the Hinckley school bus driver. His name was Arlo Taylor, the thing I remember most about him was how terrified I was of him. Before I rode a bus (because I didn’t have to go into Delta until Junior High School), Arlo was the custodian at Hinckley Elementary School. That gave me several vulnerable years to develop a suitable fear of him so by the time I rode his bus, I wouldn't even make eye contact with him let alone say a word.

Because of my many memories associated with those school years, I decided to do a series of blog posts about attending school in Hinckley Elementary and Delta High School.

Here is the first in the series about Hinckley Elementary which was originally the Millard Academy completed in 1912. Later it became Hinckley High School and was used in that capacity until 1953 when it changed to Hinckley Elementary School. The community didn’t have enough students to warrant having a teacher for every grade so the second graders were split between first and third and the fifth graders were split between fourth and sixth. Even still, the biggest class I ever had was 18 students.

This is how the building currently looks with the doors boarded up and all the window missing. It was a beautiful, stately and well-proportioned building with many large trees surrounding it and a large playground to the northwest side and several baseball and football fields in the back.

I walked to and from Hinckley Elementary from kindergarten through sixth grade in every kind of weather. I don’t think it ever occurred to me to ask to be driven to school. We lived about a half mile from the school so it wasn’t a great distance, but the thing to bear in mind is that girls wore dresses every day no matter how high the snow was piled up or how hard that Millard County wind blew. Also for the first few years of elementary school, I walked back and forth for lunch each day too. Fourth grade was the first time I remember eating lunch at school. Hinckley’s cafeteria wasn’t in the school; it was a barrack building from Topaz Interment Camp which had been located west of town. The building had been brought from Topaz sometime after 1948 when the Japanese/American citizens who were relocated there for three years during World War II had finally been allowed to disperse.

A photo of Topaz camp circa 1944. One of these buildings served as my lunchroom at Hinckley Elementary School.

The Hinckley students would have to walk from the school along a sidewalk to the north of the school and wait in line outside for our turn to get a tray and collect our lunch from the counter before sliding into a long table and eating a hurried meal so there would be enough time to have fun on the playground. Some of my favorite memories of recess activities were playing Go-To-The-Bars on the swings. It was a tag-type of game where the one who is ‘it’ tries to catch someone who isn’t clinging to one of the metal bars between swinging. We had elaborate rules including having to swing at least once between the time ‘it’ ran from the end poles. The other favorite recess activity was spinning on the monkey bars. We used our coats to limit the friction and would use one knee up on the bar and then spin around and around. I would do it until I was so dizzy I couldn’t stand up, it was so much fun! It did cause a problem when we moved to Pleasant Grove in third grade because I tried to show someone the trick and realized the bars were closer together at that school when my nose impacted on the lower bar. I had never before or since seen so much blood as the day I broke my nose.

I loved all of my Hinckley Elementary teachers, but the two who stand out most in my mind was Mrs. Hardy, my fourth and fifth grade teacher and Mr. Farnsworth, my sixth grade teacher. They were both instrumental in helping me discover who I was and finding worth in myself. Mrs. Hardy died of cancer a few months into my fifth grade year and that was a monumental occurrence in my life. I still think about her often and miss her.

In addition to teaching sixth grade, Mr. Farnsworth was also the school principal. He was an amazing man. I understand he is still alive and about four years ago I wrote him a letter to tell him how much I appreciated his efforts on behalf of his students. Until Mr. Farnsworth started teaching me, I was convinced I was stupid. He made me realize that I had strengths and abilities and always praised me in a way that made me want to do even better. While in sixth grade, we had a school paper, we put on several plays, we learned and performed different dances and we decorated the bulletin boards in the halls of the school. The sixth graders also were in charge of keeping the school grounds looking nice. We had a day in the fall and a day in the spring when we brought rakes and shovels to school and worked outside all day cleaning and pruning and burning to keep the grounds looking nice. I have never before or since heard of a school that does that.

I still have dreams which take place inside the walls of Hinckley Elementary. Going to school there was the best thing about living in that tiny town. I am so grateful for the education I received there, for the friends I made there, and for memories which warm my heart all these many years later.

End of an Era

It is official. We are no longer the ‘Crushed Velvet Couch Crouchs’

Back in 1983 when Rob and I got married, we paid $50.00 for a long, green, crushed-velvet couch my boss was selling at his garage sale. It was our living room sofa for the first several years as we finished college and started our family. When we moved to Bountiful, it became our family room sofa when we purchased a new living room set of furniture. Our kids grew up playing on, watching TV from, making forts with, and jumping off of that big, green couch and I didn’t realize how much they had bonded with it.


One of Kevin's many cushion forts

Kevin reading to new baby brother on the end of the green couch

Dani assuming the favorite TV viewing position on the green couch

When we purchased a hide-a-bed sofa for the family room, we decided to get rid of the green couch, but because of the attachment we had formed with it during 15 years of ownership; we took it on a farewell tour around our neighborhood on New Years Day 1998.


After we took it to the kids’ schools, the church and many of our favorite neighbors’ yards and took photos, we donated the couch to Deseret Industries. I didn’t expect the outcry we received from our children. They were always making comments about how much they missed playing with the cushions and how they could stretch out on the green couch and how cramped the new sofa was, etc.


Our couch in the church parking lot

Kevin at his Jr. High School

Dani and Bryan at Bountiful Elementary

Some of our neighbors who joined in the fun of the couch tour

Just over a year later, we moved to Pleasant View and the kids would occasionally wax nostalgic for the green couch so when I started visiting teaching a sister in our new ward with a gigantic, orange, crushed velvet couch, I told her about the affection my family had for a similar piece of furniture. A couple of months later, she phoned me and said she wanted to get rid of the couch and wondered if I’d like to have it. I didn’t even hesitate, I said, “yes”! We found out when we went to pick it up that this couch was about two feet longer and at least 100 pounds heavier than the green couch (hard to believe there could be something bigger and heavier!).

We brought it home on Pleasant View’s Founder’s Day and watched the fireworks while sitting on it that night out in our backyard. The next day, it made its way into our unfinished basement.

Fireworks from the big, comfy orange couch

Over the ensuing years, the basement was finished around the big, orange couch. It was pushed from one place to another while walls were built, sheet rocked, mudded, primed, painted, moldings and doors installed, carpet layed, etc. It finally came to rest in front of Bryan’s TV/Video gaming center and has rested there for many years…until yesterday.

October 30, 2010 ended the era of big, long, heavy, old, crushed velvet couches at our house. The orange couch made its way out of the house with a brief stop out front for a quick photo shoot before it was tied into the back of the van and delivered to the Ogden Salvation Army.









So it is with a little melancholy, we wish adieu to our couches and move into the new era without crushed velvet furniture. To whomever ends up with our old velvet couches, we wish you many years of joyful couch-cushion fort-making and stretching-out without touching the ends of a couch and joy in not worrying about what a child can do to your furniture.

Hinckley Halloweens

Every year when the leaves change colors and fall off the trees, I think about being a kid and how much I enjoyed Halloween. It is far from being my favorite holiday now but growing up in Hinckley, it was a great day and night to be a little kid.

At Hinckley Elementary we wore our costumes to school on Halloween. Those teachers knew how to make Halloween a cool day. Midmorning, the fifth/sixth grades class started a parade and went through the fifth/fourth grades classroom. These kids then joined the parade and went through the second/third classroom adding those children to the back of the pack. Next it picked up the first/second graders and then finally down to the kindergarten room. After every kid and teacher in the school (which would have been about 70 people) was in line, we traipsed in all our glory, down to Main Street and promenaded for the townsfolk who assembled by the church, post office and store. We waved at our parents and all the old farmers and housewives who would stand on the sidewalk and watch the procession of children dressed in every kind of costume.

I always wanted to be a princess or a fairy or someone beautiful…wishful thinking for the homeliest child in the school. My fifth grade year, my mom used some kind of heavy, old fabric and made me a long, flowing dress. The material was off-white and not very pretty, but she dyed it royal blue which made me very happy. She also made me a crown. I thought it was wonderful; in fact, I wore that same costume again the next year but with wings and a wand.

After our parade, we wound around the block and back to the school from another direction. Then we had a massive party in the gymnasium. The PTA set up ‘fishing’ booths, ring toss, beanbag throw, and darts-at-balloons type games. It was a carnival-type atmosphere and I looked forward to it every year.

THEN, there was the trick-or-treating in the evening. I would meet up with one or more of my school friends and we would go to the non-scary houses in town. We learned there were some houses you just didn’t go to. After a few years, we figured out which homes had the best treats and started planning our route in advance to hit the good ones and skip the places where old bachelors and ornery ladies lived.

The second year I wore my blue-dyed long dress, it snowed and I recall how cold it was as the snow encrusted the bottom six or seven inches of the dress and froze into a ring around my legs. My Mom had tried to convince me to wear my coat, but I figured my wings wouldn’t look right over my coat, so I went without it and regretted it by the time we were a few blocks from home. That was the year I was literally frozen blue. All that snow on my dress caused the dye to run and it colored my skin blue for a few days.

My Mom didn’t believe in kids dressing up or trick-or-treating once they were out of elementary school. Lucky for me, I had a baby brother born the summer after I turned 10 so when he was two or three years old, my Mom let me take him around town to trick or treat. Mom thought I was being such a great sister taking Mark in his adorable little costumes to get candy, but I was totally cashing in because he was so cute, everywhere we went I would get a piece of candy too.

Fun times! I bet Hinckley is still a great trick-or-treating town. I'm pretty sure the old Hinckley Elementary School is haunted; it sure looks it! I wonder if I could borrow someone's sweet little kid on Halloween this year to go visit my old hometown?

Just Us Girls

Rob, Kevin and Bryan rolled out of bed between 3:30 and 4:00 this morning to pack, pick up Larissa and make the trek to Moab and Arches National Park. They are going canyoneering. I hope this will be good therapy for Bryan's knees and his spirit to spend time with people he loves doing his favorite activity in a fantastic part of the state.

Cami asked me yesterday why I never go with the guys to camp out, hike and rappel into slot canyons. I had to tell her that other than being with people I love, I wouldn't enjoy any of the stuff they do. I grew up in a 'camping' and 'fishing' family and never appreciated being out in the wilderness without my shower and blow dryer that much. I like nature, but I want to sleep in my own bed at night. I also like nature on the surface, not dangling somewhere high above it or in a canyon full of stagnate water somewhere below it.

So Cami and I have two days to be together. I know her plan involves spending most of that time at the mall with my credit card heating up as it is swiped over and over. My ideas involve being wrapped up in a blanket and visiting with her on the couch, watching some chick flicks or having a read-a-thon while eating popcorn. I wonder if we can compromise and find some activities to do together we can both enjoy and won't leave me needing to buy more hangers for Cami's closet and/or wondering how to balance the checkbook this month?

Ornamental Grasses of Autumn

Even though I do love fall, as I have previously blogged about, there is certainly an element of sadness about the season. I find it very depressing pulling out my garden and dismantling the flower beds which I spent all spring and summer planting, watering, deadheading, fertilizing, weeding and enjoying.

Last week I started the inevitable winterizing projects in the yard. I’ve found that it doesn’t do any good to put off doing these important jobs like cutting back perennials and digging out annuals including the vegetable plants in the garden. I learned the hard way, leaving them under a layer of snow all winter just makes for a bigger, messier job next spring.

One of the last things I remove or cut back in the fall are the ornamental grasses in my yard. I’ve become very fond of these decorative grasses and I actually have several varieties this year. One of the best things about them is how little maintenance they require and most of them will grow back next spring without coaxing. The only one I have to replant each spring it the Purple Fountain Grass, which is one of my favorites, and if we lived somewhere other than a cold zone, it would be considered perennial too.

Here are some of the grasses growing in our yard this autumn.

Varigated Chinese Grass

Purple Fountain Grass

Pampas Grass

Black Grass

Moor Grass

The Pampas and this Moor Grass will get prettier as the weather cools because their heads become larger and fluffier later in the season. After the first snow, I'll have to bundle up and cut these beautiful feathery plumes and stalks down and allow the stubby remains to sleep all winter under a blanket of white, regenerating enough strength to do it all again next year, hopefully on an even bigger and grander scale.

Happy Birthday, Baby Girl

17 years ago today Camille and I were at Lakeview Hospital in Bountiful. We spent the evening and a great part of the night looking each other over and becoming acquainted. Cami had just entered the world earlier in the day and seemed enthralled as her big, bright, intelligent eyes checked out her new surroundings. Seeing my beautiful new baby girl brought such joy to my heart. There aren't words to describe the way I felt looking at her and feeling those clouds of glory trailing behind her from Heaven.

October 5 has been a special day at our house since 1993. Each year we try to do something special to let Camille know how much she means to us. She has brought sunshine and laughter into our house. She loves clowning around and making everyone laugh. She is such a beautiful young lady and a joy to spend time with. I always look forward to having her home to keep me company and to keep me entertained.

At 3:02 this morning I thought Camille came in and knelt by the head of my bed and asked where her presents were. I told her and she left. After a few minutes I got up and went into her room to see how she liked her gifts. Unfortunately, I had just been dreaming the whole scenario, and I woke her up knocking on her door and asking her if she liked her presents. My poor children and husband have all been victims of my sleep disorders. I walk and talk in my sleep and think things are going on which really aren't. Poor Cami, she got her first birthday wish early this morning when she was trying to sleep.

Before she left for school, she opened her gifts and after school she saw the birthday banner the Young Women's President hung on our house. Then we went to the frame shop and ordered the mat and frame for the Edgar Degas print of ballet dancers we ordered for her birthday.

We rented a couple of movies to watch this evening and made Pizza Marguerite for dinner with chocolate donuts and milkshakes for dessert (all her choice).That was how we celebrated our baby girl's 17th birthday.

I love you, Camille. Thank you for being my daughter and bringing sunshine into my days and sweet dreams into my nights. (I promise I won't disturb your's tonight.)

Love,

Mom

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Remember that Staples Office Products commercial with the kids dragging dejectedly behind the happy dad with the shopping cart while the

Christmas song,

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, is playing?

Fall really is my favorite time of the year!

The cooler nights and days.

The way we eat fresh food from the garden this month.

Today I picked a peach and walked back to house

peeling and eating it warm off the tree...yum!

All the jars of beautifully preserved foods lining

the counter and then the storage room shelves.

The v-shaped formations of Canadian Geese flying south for the winter.

Huge, honking birds which make such a contrast

against the early-morning, water-color-washed sky.

Fluffy tufts of milkweed popping out of pods

along the ditch banks.

Color sneaking into the leaves on the trees.

It seems to happen overnight.

Not using the furnace or the air conditioner...

I don't even mind getting my utility bills.

The sun slants across the yard differently in the fall

making everything seem more brilliant and sharply contrasted.

The sky seems bluer, the grass is greener,

the sunsets and sunrises are more spectacular.

I can wear my sweaters and jackets that have been unused all summer.

My tall boots with wool skirts.

Long sleeves and turtle necks.

Flannel sheets and an extra blanket on the bed.

Being forced into a schedule because Cami is back in school.

We're going to bed and getting up earlier each day.

Going off Day Light Savings Time!

Thank you, Lord, for giving us Autumn before slamming us with Winter.

Love,

Georgia

A Suppressed Random Childhood Memory

This week I was stung on the knee by a yellow jacket. That shouldn’t be a big deal, but it had been so long since the last sting I received, I had forgotten how much it hurts. A few days later, two of my children made references to Steig Larsson's trilogy, the third book of which is called The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.

Those experiences brought back a memory I had suppressed for years. When I was eight years old, my parent; brother, Jim; and I moved away from Hinckley for a few months. My dad took a construction position in Utah County building a condominium complex. While this project was going on, we lived in Pleasant Grove from October 1969 to May 1970 and in Provo from May to August 1970. I attended third grade at Central Elementary in Pleasant Grove and then we spent the summer before fourth grade living in a trailer next to the Provo River. When I lived in Provo as a student 12 years later, I went to the location of that trailer park and found it is now a city park.

I was pretty blue the summer of 1970. Jim and I only had each other to play with because we didn’t know any kids around there. Most of our belongings (books and toys) were packed in boxes and were staying that way because we would be moving back to our house in Hinckley in a short time. After a day or two of living in Provo, I found the best way to pass the time was to sit on a large, flat rock that overhung the river. I could throw sticks and rocks into the water, I could watch the wildlife in and around the water, or I could listen to the sound of the fast-moving water. I was quite fascinated by the river. On my first day visiting the river, I saw an enormous gray, papery wasp nest lying on the ground about 10 feet from the edge of the water. It was about 15 inches long and shaped like a fat football. Apparently a storm had blown it out of a nearby tree. I had to walk past the nest every day as I went to my favorite rock by the river. I instinctively gave it a wide birth, even though it seemed deserted and was lying on the ground instead of hanging in a tree as it had been at some previous point in time.

This routine went on for what seems like weeks, but was perhaps only days—I’d get up, dress in my shorts and t-shirt and walk down to the river. On this one particular day, I must have been feeling especially frustrated about living in a trailer down by the river because as I walked barefooted through the muddy grass to the river’s edge, I decided I was sick of seeing that old wasp nest lying on its side on the ground and I gave it a mighty kick. My bare foot sunk deep through the papery layers of the nest and as it was lifting off the ground and into the air it was tearing apart and wasps were pouring out of the shattered mess and looking for the culprit who had just destroyed their home.

Those wasps were mad as hornets! I was instantly engulfed in the swarm and stings were coming so hard, fast and furious all I could do was run, scream and swing my arms. I was wailing like a siren as I tore up the hill and down the road to home. It must have been quite a spectacle for all the residents of the trailer park who saw the skinny kid screaming and running over the speed-bump-riddled road surrounded by a swarm of furious, buzzing insects.

My mom had to swat and kill quite a few wasps which came right into the trailer with or attached to me and were still trying to seek revenge on their home wrecker. When Mom could finally get down to treating my stings it took her hours to cake my wounded body with baking soda plasters. There were lumps and bumps on nearly every inch of my little nine-year-old body; I even had stings between my toes.

The rest of that summer must have been even more boring because I only remember one more visit to the river and that was on the day we moved back to Hinckley. I walked down to look at my rock and the remains of the wasp nest. There wasn’t too much of it left, but the biggest chunk still had a few wasps circling it so I didn’t stay long.

Weeks of Bryan

As my blog readers are aware, my son, Bryan, was serving a mission in Budapest, Hungary until July 19, 2010, when severe pain in both knees required him to be sent home for surgery.

He had bilateral knee surgery seven weeks ago on July 27. Since that time Bryan has been here at the house recovering and allowing me the chance of getting to know him on a new level.

Bryan and I have had some opportunities to do things together in a way that has not happened since he was my little buddy while his older siblings were in school all day. Some of the things we’ve enjoyed over the past few weeks are:

Taking in a temple session every Wednesday

Driving to and from Arizona together

Visiting and laughing with one another

Riding bikes all over Pleasant View and North Ogden

Attending doctor and physical therapy appointments

Going out to lunch together

Talking seriously about his future

Watching/listening to him ‘whip’ with his Hungarian whip

Learning about Hungary’s culture, people and language

In a little over two weeks, Bryan and I will once again go to Dr. Pepper Murray’s office in Bountiful. This time it will be to hear the final verdict on whether this surgeon will allow Bryan to return to missionary service or not. Dr. Murray has already made it perfectly clear that he will not support Bryan returning to Hungary (which is heartbreaking for my son). But on September 30, we will learn if he will permit Bryan to resubmit mission papers to serve in another location; one that doesn’t require him to climb stairs or walk great distances on his arthritic knees. I hope and pray that both of us will be prepared to hear that verdict and move forward with faith in whatever comes next.

Confessions of an Evil Egg Flinger

During a recent visit with my Mother, I finally came clean about an incident that happened more than 32 years ago. Since Mom is now aware of this episode and Dad was probably informed when he arrived in heaven a few years ago, it is time to make it known to anyone else who is willing to read my ramblings.

This event took place that same summer we moved onto Main Street, Hinckley when I was 16 years old. After we transported the chickens, Jim and I were given the responsibility of moving the eggs stored in our cold room. Mom and Dad evidently had not realized just how many eggs were stored there because the area prepared in the new house for egg storage wasn’t nearly large enough to hold all those dozens of eggs. The cartons were stored by date, so Jim and I took the newest eggs and stacked them in the fridge in the mud room of the new house. After filling that fridge to capacity, we still had 114 dozen eggs left with no place to put them. So what do you do when you have that many eggs? When you are 16 and 13 years old and your parents are in Salt Lake City for the day, you simply divide them equally between the two of you; set up your fortress of cartons on your side of the long sidewalk that equally divides the front yard; and you have a huge egg fight.

That’s right, we threw eggs at each other in what we are sure was the largest egg war in the history of Hinckley, Utah.

The house on Main Street had two very distinct features that made it the perfect egg-fight venue. First, even though it was on Main Street, it was completely private due to the nine-foot-high hedge that grew around the entire front yard. (I was the trimmer of that hedge and that is another story for another blog post). Second, this yard was huge. You don’t see gigantic front yards anymore. Now days the lot is divided so the extra space is in the back of the house for yards, gardens, decks, pools, etc. But in the late 1800s when this home was built, it was a boarding house (where Camilla Kimball lived when she taught Home Economics at the Millard Academy in Hinckley—possibly another blog post someday?) and it had a very long sidewalk from the gate near the road to the large front porch. That long, straight sidewalk made a perfect division for our battleground.

I claimed the south side of the lawn, which I thought would be the best side for combat--it had the biggest and the most trees in the yard. I figured I’d be able to stand behind the trees and hurl eggs at Jim on his less protected side of the lawn. I assumed my three years of superior understanding and knowledge would serve me well; but that wasn’t the case at all. As the fight began, Jim quickly realized I didn’t have a very good throwing arm. He also recognized that by throwing the eggs in the limbs of the tree I was hiding behind, they dripped and dribbled down on me. He didn’t have to be accurate; he smashed those eggs into tree branches above my head and drenched me in the wet, sticky mess. I figured we each had nearly 700 eggs. Most of mine ended up in the grass or the hedge behind Jim, but it doesn’t take very many eggs on your clothes and hair to make a huge mess. I think most of Jim’s eggs were smeared all over my body. I could have stood over a skillet and made an enormous omelet with the egg dripping off of just one arm.

When the last egg was tossed, we met at the sidewalk and we started laughing at each other. Our hair was plastered to our heads by yellow-tinged slime. Even our eye lashes were stuck together in the gunk that streamed off of us. We laughed and laughed and then suddenly we stopped laughing because as we looked around the yard, we realized we had a lot of work to do to hide the evidence of our 'clash of smash'. The grass was completely covered in the shattered shells, not to mention the ooze of egg still dripping from tree trunks, limbs, the hedge and even the brick of the house.

Oh, we were going to be in so much trouble if we didn’t get this mess cleaned up soon! We each grabbed a hose and started washing down trees, bushes, the house, grass, each other, etc. We gathered arm loads of shells and tried to find a place to hide them. We eventually filled the wheelbarrow and hauled them into the garden and buried them to conceal the evidence that could be used against us.

Even after the hose washing, our hair and clothes stiffened as we dried. We removed clothing at the back door and slipped into the bathroom to shower, shampoo and repeat many times to get the goo off. We also had to do that load of laundry several times. The egg just kept sudsing and foaming up in the washing machine.

Jim and I thought we did a fairly good cleaning job; we looked spick and span by the time the parents showed up. But a few days later when our irrigation turn came and the water was turned down our ditch, I was helping Mom irrigate the yard and garden when I noticed millions of egg shell shards floating everywhere. I don’t know how Mom didn’t notice, but apparently until last Tuesday, she was completely unaware of our escapades with eggs all those years ago.

It makes me wonder what kind of antics I'm completely oblivious about that my kids will share with me a few years down the road...

Brewing up a Storm

This morning as I stepped out of my garage a little past 4:30, the three-quarter moon was shining overhead with plenty of stars scattered around. I walked up to the track breathing in the fresh morning air. Shortly after stretching and starting my first lap, a wind began blowing. By my fifth lap, the wind was nearly pushing me backwards; the clouds had billowed up over the mountains on three sides of me while the wind brought in another batch from the west. During the next couple of laps, I realized the temperature had dropped at least 10 degrees. Then lightening flashed brilliantly along the southern horizon. I cut my run a little short and started for home as the wind began driving raindrops diagonally into my face and thunder rolled across the valley. As I stepped into my garage, the clouds burst open and it just poured! After flipping off the sprinklers, I stood in the doorway and marveled at what I had just witnessed...it was magical!

Trying Some New Things

I planted a few new things in my garden this year: Basil, Cilantro and Tamatillos...and it has been GREAT!!!

I've been trying some new things in the kitchen this year. The smell of fresh basil forced me to create a Pizza Margaurite recipe that has become a huge hit here at the Crouch House.

A very simple dough recipe contains just flour, water, salt and a small amount of yeast.

Garlic and oregano in olive oil is the only sauce on the thin-rolled crust, then fresh diced tomatoes (also from my garden).

Basil is plentiful, so load up the pizza with plenty of the sweet-smelling herb.

I roll the crust out on a pastry cloth and then place it on a 500 degree pizza stone, spread on the garlic and oregano oil. Layer on the tomatoes, basil and thin slices of mozzarella.

Bake the whole thing at 500 degrees for 7 minutes, slice it up and serve immediately...yum!

Oh, yeah, I also used a few of my tomatillos and some cilantro to make a green salsa. We will be trying out some enchilada recipes with that this week...stay tuned.

P.S. If anyone would like chilies, jalapeños or green peppers, PLEASE come and get some; and don't forget raspberries...loads of raspberries ripe for the picking.