Winter Morning

‎"I always feel the movement is a sort of mosaic. Each of us puts in one little stone..." Alice Paul, legal scholar, valiant suffragist, jailed and tortured b. 11 January. 1885.... at this link, you'll find a splendid image of Ms. Paul.

So, yesterday, I never got around to writing, not one little word, here anyway, but I did note on my Facebook profile [for what it's worth] that the 10th of January marked the anniversaries of the births of Mrs. Wilder's charismatic, fiddle-playing, wander-lusting dad, in 1836, in, I think, Cuba, New York; and of her enigmatic, patient, older sister, in 1865, blond, blue-eyed Mary. I didn't even note that it was late on the 10th of January, 1980, over in West Germany, that my brother Paul was thrown out of a car, going too fast on a road too icy, driven by Paul's friend, who'd had too much to drink as had Paul, who was passed out, a PERFECT condition to be in if you're going to be thrown into a tree & into the next world. Had this not happened, he'd be 52 yr. old now. So. There it was; there it is.

No, yesterday I fussed with the 3rd or 4th revision of a twice & properly rejected fictitious story - a day well spent? pretty much. Then I set the story aside, seeing as I had company coming [Bill & Brenda, two doors up, to join me in assembling a jigsaw puzzle, of one of the images created by one of the best illustrators ever, Jessie Willcox Smith] to stir up a batch of SCOTCH GRAHAM ROLLS from a recipe I got from Natalie Kinsey-Warnock of northeastern Vermont, who got it from her foremothers. Here 'tis: Heat up your oven to 400º. Get out your muffin tin w/ the 12 little cups in it. Butter/oil/spray-lube/or otherwise grease them. MIX together

2 cups of milk

2 cups of whole wheat flour

[I substituted 1/3 cup of that w.w.flour w/uncooked oatmeal]

2 cups of white flour

1 cup of brown sugar

2/3 cup of melted shortening

1 tsp. of baking soda

1/2 tsp. of salt • It seems to me I baked them about 12-15 min. You're going for nice & puffy. Very good on a winter morning with butter or as I had them with Natalie, warm applesauce, made by her mother, Louise, just down the road.