The Little Drummer Boy and Me

There's a new post over at My Windowsill.  You're welcome to move on over there to check it out. Come on up the Front Porch.  That's where you'll find the post.

Have a Merry Christmas!

Gert

Anniversary Roses

There's a new post over on http://gertslabach.snappages.com/front-porch-swing-blog.htm
But, for now, you can also read it here.

this photo collage was created using canva.com

Roses.  I do like roses.

‘Especially on our anniversary, my birthday, on Mother’s day, or other special times, like the births of our babies.  

I used to tell folks that when I wanted a dozen roses, all I had to do was have another baby.  While it’s true that six times over roses were waiting for me when I get back from Labor and Delivery, it’s also true that I don’t get roses for every birthday, every anniversary, or every Mother’s day. 

You know what makes the roses so special?  The fact that, on any other day when there are no roses, he is in my corner.  Any other day when I’m unkempt and the house is a mess, he helps pick up the pieces and puts me back together again.  Any other day when there is no wafting fragrance in the house, he becomes the fragrance by serving me, again.

The man’s rather imperfect, and so is his wife.  Imagine that.  Even so, in a world of strife, marriages that have dissolved or marriages that are falling apart, we are blessed.

Like so many other marriages, ours could simply be a statistic.  It’s not that we’re so smart or so special.  It’s that God is.  When you go to God for help, when you really seek for wisdom, when you truly apply what you know to do even when you don’t feel like it, then you find that marriage can be done well.

There have been days when I’ve stormed the gates of Heaven, asking God to show me how to understand and love this man.  Every time I have asked, He has given me answers.  ‘Not that I always liked the answers or felt like following the directions, mind you.  But every time I’ve asked for wisdom, He has given what I’ve needed. ‘Trouble is that sometimes we just don’t bother to ask.

Our marriage bed is not an array of roses minus thorns.  It’s a fragrance that comes when the petals are crushed as I  becomes us.  It’s a fragrance that comes when making love is not so much about “everything is perfect and we’ve got it all together” as it is about “even though we are frustrated with each other, we are still committed to each other; so tonight making love to you is a great way to emphasize that commitment.” 

Thirty years ago today in a small town in western Maryland, in the church where my parents were married many years before, we tied the knot.  Amid freshly-fallen snow, family and friends, we celebrated.

We celebrate today, and I enjoy the roses and their perfume.  Today especially, we celebrate the greatest fragrance of all:  the faithfulness of God.

A New View from a Different Window

Welcome to a new view from my world!  I'll be blogging over here from a different window.  You'll still be able to access this site (www.gert-slabach.blogspot.com) or you can check out the new view on the link above.

At this new blogging site (My Windowsill), you'll find more photos, a section on recipes (The Kitchen Table) and some other interesting things.  

I'm interested in your feedback.  You can PM me on facebook or email me at: quiverfull4242@gmail.com

Thanks - and I  hope you enjoy the newly installed window in my home!

~Gert

Homemade, Hearthside Memories

Hearth: 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearth   In archaeology, a hearth is a firepit or other fireplace feature of any period. Initial usage refers to a place of warmth, heat, or fire, or 'heat of earth'.

Fresh from the outdoor oven!

I'm going back home again. It’s the changing-of-the-leaves time.  It’s apple cider and apple butter time. It's Springs Folk Festival time, and I wouldn't miss it for the world.  

It’s true that I've already seen the hundreds of displays, crafts, and craftsmen at this Festival.  I've watched the glass blowing, hewing of logs, sheep shearing, horses on a treadmill, and women quilting.  I've listened to fiddle-playing in the woods, seen apple-butter-making over an open fire, and sat in the building where a play is performed or various groups and families sing and play a diverse assortment of instruments, music and songs. 

I've purchased my share of relics and crafts to use in my home or as gifts. Yet while I’ll enjoy walking the trail and maybe hitching a ride on the hay wagon, I’m really heading home for one reason: to help bake home-mixed, homemade bread in an outdoor oven.




















I am partial to homemade bread. It’s true that I've developed my own repertoire of recipes 

that can bring the house down.  But when it comes to homemade, there’s nothing quite like the

flavor of a slice of fresh bread that’s been baked in an outdoor oven heated with coals fired 

from wood. 

Trust me. I grew up with a bakery in the house and recognize that bread is a specialty all its own.  Couple that hearth-bread flavor with real home-churned Jersey cow butter and Beachy’s homemade apple butter, and you've got a taste with homemade flavor like no other.

to read more about Beachy's apple butter and how to order some, go to:         
  http://beachynews.blogspot.com/2009/10/sam-beachy-sons-apple-butter-pure-home.html

Allen with his apparatus,  He uses antifreeze instead of ice.
Yes, that's a tractor you see;  it's used to provide power to freeze the ice cream.

It certainly helps that I get to work for and with my sisters and family members. It helps that, just down the path, is homemade ice cream I get to eat free 'cause it’s made by my brother Allen, who developed his own ice cream mix and in-vented his own equip-ment to churn out the best homemade ice cream in town.

We smile because the weather affects both of our sales:  if it’s a warm, sunny day, the ice cream gets sold out.  If the temperatures are low or it’s rainy, folks stand around our booth with the outdoor oven to get warm.  One booth or the other is always doing well come Folk Festival day.

As teenagers, we helped in our mother’s bakery as her mixer kneaded sixty-pound tubs of dough to make two-pound loaves of bread.   In earlier Festival years, we helped sell Mrs. Miller’s Homemade Bread at the Festival, and it seemed that people snatched it up more quickly when they learned that this bread came from our home and that it was made by our mother and that we ourselves had helped.  They believed us, for we could explain the procedure step by step and answer all their questions.  I like to think they also believed us because of the evident pride and excitement in our product.

Nebraska Helpers: 

Matt and Loretta Burkey, Rachel
Burkey Miller, and Darla Orendorf Kramer
weighing, shaping, and pricking loaves.

So when I go back home to help in the booth that is run by my sisters, there is again that sense of pride and excitement in this project because we are family. I get to visit with nieces and nephews and their children; I get to rub shoulders with my own kids and my siblings.

Two of my sisters began managing the bread booth at the Folk Festival one year after our mother closed her bakery.  They are assisted by their families, other siblings (one of them is me) and their offspring.  It comes naturally and easily – as naturally as yeast causes bread to rise, as easily as kneading dough after fifty years’ experience, as readily as customers standing in line, waiting for the next batch to come out of the oven.

Alice cleans the bowl that is
used to mix the dough. 

While this outdoor oven has been in use at this Festival since 1987, this will be the fourteenth year that my family is baking the bread.  Each year, the demand increases.  Last year 2232 loaves of bread were mixed, shaped, baked and sold in less than forty hours.  That’s 84 batches of bread dough.  My family, known as Miller, often refers to and does things in batches. 

Our father had his own batches of children.  Born of different mothers, his first and second batch are different. The five sons and four daughters from his first wife are known as the first batch.  The six daughters from the second wife are the second batch. (I belong to the second batch.)  Even today, grandchildren and great-grandchildren ask for explanations and are given answers by explanations as to which batch a person belongs.

Allen with his ice cream making machine.

Allen, our ice-cream-maker brother, is the youngest son of the first batch. We his sisters come from both the first and the second batch and manage the bread booth within sight of the ice cream stand. Bread and ice cream are shared freely among family all day long, and it doesn't matter from which batch you’ve come:  you qualify because you’re family. [If you want to hear from Allen about his machine, click here.]

It is doubtful that my sisters would have undertaken the outdoor oven project had they not had experience in our mother’s bakery. Year after year, baking bread for the Folk Festival was the main Bakery event of the year.  Forty-five years after the Bakery was founded, our mother stopped the mixer and closed the oven doors for the last time.   How many batches, how many loaves of bread were mixed and baked in that room?!  On normal weeks, five or six hundred loaves of bread were delivered in stores.  During the Springs Folk Festival week, approximately 2,000 were baked and sold with the help of both batches of my father’s children.

My sisters founded Bread from the Hearth in 2001, continuing the Festival tradition with this oven that was built solely for making bread during the Folk Festival.  They followed the families of Yoder and Brenneman, who passed the bread recipe from one “owner” to the next. While baking bread was nothing new to my sisters, doing it in an outdoor oven is certainly different than it was within the bakery of our home.

Ida Marie Miller, Alice Orendorf,
Sarah Beth Slabach, Rachel Miller,
and Jason Slabach at the bread table

That first year, each of us in the second batch came home (from Canada, Nebraska, and Virginia) to help our sisters who live in Maryland.  Siblings from the first batch helped as well.  Some of us brought our children.

Sarah Beth Slabach takes a break
 in front of the shelves of bread.

Our mama, who was probably missing her own bakery, helped serve sliced bread. Fourteen years later, the tradition runs strong.

Rachel and Alice hold responsibility for the Bread from the Hearth booth. Alice and her husband Bernard arrive in the middle of the night, in time to put the first loaves into the oven (which has been fired since before midnight), and stay for the remainder of the day.  

Bernard mans the outdoor oven and adds wood or kindling as needed, keeping a close eye on the temperature, and making certain heat is distributed evenly throughout the oven.  He handles the metal racks holding seven to eight loaves of bread, putting them in and taking them out of the oven. Rachel helps run the booth throughout the day and tries to make sure we all get our breaks so we can be back during the busiest time.

Katharine tests the water temperature
before adding it to the dough mixture.

Katharine (now in her seventies) begins mixing bread at midnight and stays until the sun is up and more help has arrived. We consider her the unofficial expert, and she finds way to fix mistakes during the batch-mixing like nobody else can.

Over the years, grand-children (and now great-grandchildren),  have visited with each other from Indiana, Maryland, Nebraska and Virginia as they work at the dough table weighing bread, shaping loaves, and serving sliced bread or selling loaves at the front of the booth.  Sometimes it's rainy and cold, and we vie for spots by the oven so we can stay warm.  Other years we swelter and stay as far from the oven as we can.

Cousins and an aunt: 

Anna Keefer, Elissa Orendorf, Alice, and
Sarah Beth Slabach at the dough table.

Christi and Bonita Orendorf
wait on customers in the bread line.

Each year, we come home (or wish we could!) to continue a tradition that evokes memories of our childhood and younger years. We come home to work together again and bake bread in an outdoor oven modeled after the one built by our great-grandfather over 140 years ago.

As dough rises, loaves are shaped and pricked, bread is baked, and customers line up again, we continue to do what we learned well in the bakery at home over half a century ago.  

Though the setting has changed and geographies separate us, we come home to work together, make and bake bread, visit and reminisce, connect with each other's children, and make memories as we continue a tradition.

When the Festival is over, the oven coals are scattered in the firebox and the glow from the embers fades.  The door of the oven is latched and the hearth is swept clean.  When another Festival is over, the texture of time, the taste of home, and the aroma of memories will linger.  No matter which batch we are from, we are family.  Together, we taste and enjoy the timeless beauty, texture, and warmth of homemade.

PHOTO GALLERY - as it happens

   

Ben Reigsecker gets ready to help
mix another batch of bread.

The mixer doing its job.

               

Jason Slabach  helps his aunt Katharine put
dough from the bowl into a tub where it will rise.

       

Bread rising in the warming closet before going  into the oven.

Bread has come out of the oven; unbaked loaves are
ready to go into the oven.

Elissa Orenorf Reigsecker takes hot bread
out of pans,using mitts.

   

Julie Keefer puts apple butter on a
slice of homemade bread  for a customer.

Anna Keefer places loaves into bags to be sold.

Above: The finished product.

Below:  Rebekah Slabach puts bread into paper bags for customers.
The bread is too hot to go into the plastic bags and we are almost sold out!

Alicen Regisecker begs her father for a taste of apple butter on bread.

Kohl Orendorf plays with his cousin Aaron Slabach while his parents work in the bread booth.
. In the background, you can see the stacks of wood that will be used in the firebox of  the outdoor oven.

               

Rebecca Miller (NE) enjoys the taste of homemade!
One bite going . . .

                                             

going . . .

                                                

                                                                              . . .  almost gone . . . !

PHOTO CREDITS: 

Glen Beachy, Marla Miller,  Rachel N. Miller, Gertrude Slabach, Rebekah Slabach, Springs Historical Society

                             

  

Rearranging My Life after Goodbyes

It’s been quite the summer.  We've prayed over secrets and said more goodbyes than hellos.

A few weeks ago I told a friend that I've sat on so many of my kids’ secrets this summer that I had trouble remembering what information was classified from whom.  Sometimes I wasn't sure which one needed prayers the most.

Recently I told Rebekah that maybe we just have too many kids. (There’s an event at VT that she wants us to attend the same weekend we’ll be visiting Ben in Colorado.)

Then there is this thing of saying goodbye.  Goodbyes mean that I have to rearrange my life.  Just when I become comfortable with the way things are, along comes another good-bye.

I’m a little like my mama was when we wanted to rearrange furniture.  She liked things just the way they were and saw no need for change.  If it worked this way, why not leave it?  Her philosophy (minus incorrect grammar) was:  If it ain't broke, don’t fix it.

My sisters and I wanted variety.  We said she might like it, and You'll never know until you try!  She didn't appreciate the time it took to rearrange things or the upheaval of trying to find places for the disheveled pieces left when we were done! (Mama does get credit, however, for releasing three of her daughters to men or to ministry in Canada, Nebraska and Virginia as well as cheerfully rearranging her life as each of her girls left home.)

Now that I’m nearing the big 6-0, I’m there, too.  I rather like things to stay the same.  My kids don’t see it that way; so I’m kept busy praying over their activities and rearranging and finding places for their stuff.  In addition, I've helped move them home and assisted their packing to get ready for the next leg on their journey.  Sometimes I sit down at the end of the day and say, Whew!

"And how was your day?"

One can never give too many hugs.

We knew this would be the summer we said goodbye to a house full of kids.  We had one son moving west (one of those secrets while those Phone and Skype and They’re-Gonna-Fly-Me-Out-There interviews were being completed).

I tried to prepare myself to say goodbye to my oldest and my three youngest: two college girls and my high school senior. Plus, soon we’d be bidding farewell to the little nuggets who had wrapped their tentacles around our hearts for over a year.

That goodbye was coming first and would probably be the hardest because of its permanence.

Suffice it to say that the longer we love, the harder it is to say goodbye. The more we invest, the stronger the chords.  We invested time and energy, especially in those first weeks when nighttime kept us awake for hours.  Each bleary morning as I poured coffee, I wished for just one good night of sleep.  I’m just too old for this, I’d say to the morning dew as I sipped my coffee on the deck.  I survived.  Even though they weren't ours to keep, we claimed them as ours and they surely claimed us.  Now we had to say goodbye.

Tim gives a ride in his truck

The evening before, Tim came by to give them each one more ride in his truck.  He hung around afterwards for a long time.

On goodbye day, we packed their clothes, their toys, and their books.  We filled another bag with blankets and homemade pillow cases.

A deck party was planned, and we invited friends for supper. Mid-afternoon as we surveyed our not-so-clean house and their so-very-many-things-pile we had amassed, Sarah Beth commented, “Maybe it wasn't such a good an idea to have company for supper.”

“Oh, by tonight you’ll be glad we did,” I replied.

We said tearful good-byes.  We hugged and kissed and waved as they drove away for the last time.

Then we went inside and finished company preparations.  Instead of whining about our loss, we reminisced with friends and shared our pain in saying goodbye.  Instead of feeling alone, we leaned into our pain and felt supported because we were surrounded by friends who had loved them intensely as well.

Peeling apples
for apple dumplings

A few days later Sarah Beth and I headed “home” to Maryland.  We knew our house would be empty and quiet without little feet pitter-pattering and little hands pestering to help in the kitchen.  Plus, life wasn't going to get any easier if we sat around feeling sorry for ourselves.

As always, it was cooler in Maryland.  I failed to take a jacket, so I went to Mama’s bedroom closet to find a sweater. The gray sweater fit and still smelled like Mama, even though it had that musty odor of unworn clothes hanging in a closet.

Stuffing my hands in the pockets, I found two cough drops, three handkerchiefs, and three toothpicks.  Finding these items in her pockets was no surprise; this was my mama.  I can still see her with that toothpick in her mouth after a meal; remember us begging her to use tissues instead of a handkerchief when she had a cold; hear that gravel in her throat when she had a winter cold and cough.



I hugged the sweater to myself and went to visit my friend Pam.  After my massage, I decided that before I feel inclined to go for counseling for depression, I’ll opt to get a massage.  Pam listens to a lot of secrets as she massages weary muscles and tissues, and secrets are safe with her.  We talked about the therapy she gives by listening and by caring.  I think having someone to talk to helps alleviate depression.  Really, I’d be getting plenty of bang for my bucks!

[I am not saying counseling is never necessary; at times getting Christian, professional help is the best way to go. I’m saying that if we’d be more willing to share the cries of our heart with others, and if we’d be more open to bearing each other’s burdens and could be counted on for your-secret's- safe-with-me, we might need fewer counseling sessions down the road].

On the way home, I visited the graveyard. The sun was kinder on this late June day than it had been that cold, blustery day we trudged the shoveled path to bury our mama.

With summer rays beaming on the graves, I reckoned (again) that I can never understand the pain my half-siblings experienced when they buried a little sister and, exactly one year later, their mother.

I reckoned that I had no concept of the grief and burden my mother bore when she buried our father.

Only five, I didn't understand the pain of her loss nor the view on her horizon as she faced unknown widowed-years ahead.

Standing there in the graveyard I thanked God for the heritage I possess.  It is mine, not because of anything I've done, but because of the choices made by others, and because He is God. 

Saying goodbye is never easy. In our grief, there are poignant reminders that stir us along the way. We can try to slam the door on our grief and our goodbyes, or we can lean into the pain.  I have learned that leaning into the pain instead of avoiding it brings healing as well as hope.

one of my mama's
 homemade cape dresses

Soon after her death four winters ago, my sisters and I spent an afternoon sorting through Mama’s dresses. We chose some for ourselves and our daughters; then we then donated the rest for missions. The dresses I had chosen were still hanging in her closet and my plan was to finally do something with these dresses.

While I was tearing out seams in Mama’s dresses, Sarah Beth cut patches from her Virginia Tech t-shirts. And my dear sister Katharine, who spends more time helping others than doing her own things, revved up her sewing machine and joined the fray.

   

the pile of dresses

Katharine

My sister Barbara wandered into the dining room and helped diminish the pile of dresses that needed to be taken apart.  (There was a method to my madness in coming home to Grantsville for this project!)   As we ripped seams and sewed seams, I learned things about my father (who said goodbye to us fifty-four years ago) and his preference of colors.

 The next morning I picked blueberries next to the playhouse we played in as kids. My children spent hours in that playhouse yard; now great-grandchildren are making memories with the sandbox, the playhouse, and the swing. Every time I walk through that playhouse yard, I wax nostalgic and wish, for a moment, that I could be a child again when goodbyes are less frequent and poignant. I brought the blueberries and memories back to Virginia with me.

the playhouse, the sandbox, and swing hanging from the tree

Nostalgia seems to surprise me at unexpected bends.

Stopping at a roadside stand to purchase peaches, we were surrounded by barefoot children whose mother allowed us to hold their baby sister (who was child number ten).

Their innocence was pure delight and they were fascinated by our purses and cell phones.

You don't know how blessed you are, I wanted to tell them, thinking of our nuggets who had said goodbye and returned to a seemingly less safe world so unlike this one.

Sarah Beth holds
 the five-week old baby

We brought our sister Katharine back with us so she could fly to Canada for a visit.  (It’s a long story: we brought her south to fly north. We took advantage of having her with us, especially since we got up at 3AM to get her to the airport before I had to go to work.)


On our way home from Maryland, we stopped in Harrisonburg and spent part of a day, along with others, helping Dave’s sister Rhoda move. After all the furniture was moved (including The Monstrosity, as Dave referred to the piece that took six people to load), we unpacked the kitchen boxes and decided where we thought Rhoda wanted her kitchen items.

Between our homecoming and Katharine’s flight, my sister Rhoda was admitted to ICU; we wondered if another goodbye was coming our way. Perhaps it wasn't wise to go south to go north? (She is is doing okay now but we’re still waiting on word about the possibility of heart surgery).
.

Moving The Monstrosity

When we got home from our Maryland journey it was our turn to finalize plans for the Slabach annual reunion at Camp Tuk-Away near Blacksburg, Virginia.  The rainy weekend didn't deter folks from coming or having fun.

This reunion was especially significant for our family. On the final day of the reunion, we hugged our oldest good-bye.  Ben was going back to Richmond and then heading west in forty-eight hours.

That weekend Jason told his siblings that he was working in the Ebola unit at Emory Hospital in Atlanta (another secret Dave and I prayed about but couldn't share).

From the reunion, Sarah Beth left us to go to Atlanta with Jason and Katie before flying back to Richmond to ride to Colorado with Ben.  It was one of those Whew! goodbye days.



Nine days later we picked Sarah Beth up at the airport, and then she and I picked grapes.  Grape juice, pickles and packing were on the agenda for the day.

Canned pickles, tomato juice, peaches, grape juice, and green beans filled my counter top and stayed there for two weeks until I had time to make room and organize the basement shelves.

Two days later we said goodbye to Sarah Beth (heading east to Richmond). The following morning we took Rebekah and Aaron northwest to Virginia Tech.  We unloaded furniture and belongings, drove to Jimmy John’s for lunch, and said goodbye.

From there I joined other women heading to a retreat.  It was another one of those Whew! days. When I got back Saturday evening, the house was tidy and clean. For the first time in twenty-eight years, it was just the two of us. I have said enough good-byes for now that mean rearranging my life!

We like the change of pace, the quiet house. Yet it doesn't mean we've done our time or that it’s time to retire.

One last goodbye at VT:
Rebekah and Aaron

We will never be done praying for our kids and their future.  Plus, there are other children to love and teach, youth to rub shoulders with, young folks to mentor, older folks to visit, and neighbors to feed.

my childhood home in Maryland

Going back to my childhood home and then coming home helps me realize again how much I have been given. Therefore, much is required.  (Luke 12:48)

My friend and mentor Rhoda was chided for wearing herself out babysitting other people’s grandchildren.  She and her husband babysat entire weekends for couples so they could get away to rejuvenate their marriages.

“This is Kingdom work,” she said.  “I’d rather wear out doing Kingdom work than wear out for any other reason.”

For that reason, and for this season, we’re not done. Although the goodbyes have been said and we spend more time praying over our kids than being with them in person, we’re not done.

We’ll never be done being parents (and keeping secrets and saying goodbye).

As long as we’re here on this earth, we’ll never be done with Kingdom work.  For this reason and for this season, I will keep rearranging my life.