James Lester Goode

One of my favorite people passed away last week. My mom's dad. Easily one of the best grandfathers ever. He was an awesome Christian who loved his family. I haven't posted about him because it makes me so sad to think about it, but I need to keep myself from forgetting.

April 5, 2011 Pawpaw was driving. Yep, 96 and driving. Lovely. He pulled out into traffic and was hit by another vehicle. It was totally his fault, and he was the only one hurt. He had some scratches on his face and 15 broken ribs. Apparently, he had to be resuscitated at the scene. The lack of oxygen to his brain made him age 40 years in the past 6 months. He never acted like a man in his 90's. The day before the wreck he was in the garden getting ready to plant his tomatoes. After the wreck, he couldn't even stand unassisted. He no longer knew who we were or much about who he was.

Charlie, the kids, and I loaded the van and went to see him. Wow. That was hard because it brought back so many memories about my mom. He surprised many people just by surviving. Not many doctors deal with trauma victims in their late nineties. He eventually was able to get off the respirator and feeding tube. I went home after a few days and waited for my aunt to call.

The call finally came October 21. I cried like a baby. I don't have a lot of relatives. Losing him was very hard, even though I know he went straight to heaven. Salvation of his family was a priority for him. Again, we loaded up the van and drove to Birmingham. We drove on Sunday and crashed at the hotel. The visitation was Monday, the funeral was on Tuesday, and we came back home on Wednesday.

There were many extended family members that I got to meet. I heard more about my grandmother who passed away in 1971 than I have ever heard about her. Awesome! My family tree is getting more completely and accurately full. There were also a few people visiting who attended the church that I attended. They got to see E who is the same age I was when I lived in Birmingham. She liked being told she looked like me.

I need to end this before it becomes a book.

Hug your family members. They won't be there forever. Jimmy Goode was 97. He had 2 children, 4 grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren, and 1 beautiful legacy.

More food

The pumpkin seeds turned out delicious. I used the recipe from Kitchen Stewardship. They were soaked and dried before roasting so the nutrients are more readily available. Lots of good salt, and they were perfect. I want to make some more. Charlie will have a lot of pumpkin puree so I can get all the seeds.

The pickles were flat out nasty! I tried to like them because I hate to throw out so much time, effort, and food. I used regular cukes instead of the pickling kind. That's all I can think of that was different. Christina got me a half-bushel of pickling cukes while I was on vacation. I've made 9 quarts from them, and they taste fine so far.

The sauerkraut turned out fine. Charlie's parents really liked it! Wow. We ate one quart there, left one quart for his parents, and had one quart left here. It's almost gone. I made 3 more jars from a huge cabbage that we got at Lyda farm when we got our apples.

Actually, all the food we made for our trip was a success. His parents ate and enjoyed everything but the kefir which they won't try. A few coconut balls are left. L and I made 3 different batches of fruit-nut bars. The ginger one was made for Charlie. Miss Edith liked them, too. We didn't care as much for the chocolate batch. It was too dry. Charlie's parents liked it, so we left them at their house. The plain fruit-nut mix was the crowd favorite. It had some dried pear and banana mixed in with the coconut and almonds.

More food is cooking as I type.

Today I made...

a lot of food.

*17.25 cups of pumpkin puree

*1 gal of pickle slices

*3 qts of sauerkraut

*pumpkin seeds from 4 small pumpkins are soaking

*5 pounds of nuts (pecans and almond) were soaked last night and dehydrated today

*peel from 1 lemon was dehydrated to make lemon pepper

*1.5 qts of kefir was made and is in it's second ferment in my cool new bottles

*a double batch of filling for coconut balls was made and is waiting to be shaped and dipped in chocolate

We are going out of town on Monday, so this seemed like the perfect time to get a boat-load of produce. And Dewey came over to work on some plumbing with Charlie. And the kids were invited to a birthday party.

Charlie and the kids like pumpkin and fall spices (allspice, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon). I do not like any of that except cinnamon. Last weekend, Charlie made some pumpkin pancakes for them to eat. Also last week, I saw a recipe to cook pumpkins in the crock-pot. Charlie, J, L, and H hacked apart the pumpkins. They went into my big roaster on the back porch. The dehydrator was already running, and I didn't want to add anymore heat to the kitchen. When the pumpkin was done we just peeled it off the skin and mashed it. I divided it into 1.5 cup portions and put it in jars for the freezer.

Getting the seeds is gross, but we like them. Some of us like them. I just want the "free" food that comes from something normally thrown away. I'll season them and add them to different recipes.

The nuts are to make almond bars, granola, and just for eating straight. L helped make the filling for the coconut balls. She will help me finish them up tomorrow. It will be good to have snacks while we are out of town.

We are also taking our fermented pickles and sauerkraut. We all love those things! I hope to get some carrots going tomorrow as well. They are probiotic, nutritious, and delicious. They will likely be done when we get to Charlie's parents' house. The kids and I can't wait to see how all of our strange food goes over with them. We will also have our raw milk.