Doing Lent with Grandkids: The Pretzel Prayer Position

Sunset over Apalachicola Bay

We just got back from a trip to St. George Island, FL and Charleston, SC. It was a great break from the cold. When we left February 18th it was snowing in Woodstock. We returned to temps in the upper 60s and the very beginning of buds swelling with the promise of an early spring.

While I enjoyed every minute of our trip, I missed our grandchildren. The ones we see most frequently live only twenty minutes away and visit every week. We didn't see them for about two weeks before we left because they were passing around a bug and we certainly didn't want to pick it up and take it on our trip. So we hadn't seen them for over a month and were happy at the thought of their visit.

The youngest, Max, who is going on two wanted to call us often while we were away and say his newest word "tractor" to Paka. (We knew he meant, "Please take me for a ride on the tractor.") He calls me "Mom" and likes me to sing his special Max song which lately he has chimed in on when I reach "baby Max." At that age every day brings more words and phrases.

Whenever Max called, I said he and his sisters would have to come over and make pretzels after we got home. The girls eagerly agreed that was a good idea.

Well, we arrived home Monday night and Tuesday afternoon became pretzel day with the grandkids, an activity their mom remembers well from Lent growing up. Why pretzels in Lent? Because they look like little praying arms. In fact, the word pretzel comes from high German and means "little arms." The small breads are believed to have developed in the monastery.

So I pulled out my pretzel handout (I used to use it with my religion classes) and we made pretzels together. They did a great job rolling, shaping, and "painting" the pretzels with egg to get a nice brown color during baking. And here is what I read to them:

We said grace with our arms in pretzel prayer position

The Pretzel Story: Many years ago people, especially monks, prayed with their arms folded across their chests. During Lent they kept a very strict fast with only one meal a day and a few snacks to keep up strength -- usually bread. One day, a monk working in the kitchen took the bread dough and made it in pretzel shapes like little praying arms to remind his brother monks to devote themselves to prayer. When you eat a pretzel, let it remind you to pray like the early Christians.

Pretzel prayer: Dear Jesus, bless this little bread. Help it remind me to pray and do penance during this holy season of Lent. 

Pretzel Recipe: Dissolve one Tablespoon of dry yeast in 1 1/2 cups of very warm water. Add 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 Tablespoon of sugar. Mix well until yeast and sugar are dissolved. Add about 4 cups of flour (you can use a combination of white and whole wheat flour if you like). Knead dough until smooth. Roll in ropes and twist into pretzel shapes. Bake at 425 degrees about 15 minutes. For a browner shiny pretzel brush pretzels with beaten egg before baking. 

Enjoy making pretzels. Coming soon: Hot Cross Buns.

Sr. Mariana of Quito, Ecuador and the Bees

Our Lady of Good Success

Since becoming a beekeeper, I take special note of bees mentioned in my spiritual reading. This morning, Ash Wednesday, I was reading a biography of Sr. Mariana of Jesus, the mystic who experienced the apparitions of Our Lady of Good Success in Quito, Ecuador in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The author, Msgr. Luis E. Cadena y Almeida, wrote this:

From early childhood, Mother Mariana of Jesus had exercised the secrets of prayer. She was an industrious little bee who daily built her honeycomb with the pollen of her virtues. She loved her relationship with God and found in Him strength for suffering, stimulation for perfection, skill and valor for confronting the forces of evil  and, finally, repose and sweetness in the toils of her exile.

Winter Feeding: Bees Looking Strong!

It's nearly 60 degrees this afternoon so we took advantage of the beautiful weather to open the hives and put in sugar pies and pollen patties. This is the time of year the queen begins laying Spring bees so the hive needs enough food to make it through until the early nectar flow.

Lots of bees were flying and one aggressive little gal stung me through my pants. Hopefully, I didn't get enough venom to get much reaction. We'll see. My fault for wearing black. She probably thought I was a bear.

We went in just long enugh to feed, but a cursory look showed both hives looking very strong -- lots of bees and very active. There were also many dead bees in the snow in front of the hives, but that's not unusual this time of year. The winter bees will begin dying off and be replaced by the Spring bees. Sometimes they will even be bringing in pollen this time of year, but we didn't see any today. A few weeks ago there were several bees bringing in bright orange pollen on a warm day.

Now if they just continue doing well we will have two surviving colonies come Spring which we can hopefully divide. St. Rita, St. Valentine, St. Francis de Sales, St. Ambrose, and Sr. Lucia of Fatima please pray for our little apiary. Keep our bees strong and healthy!

Surviving without Treatments: Lessons from Wild Bees

First thing to do. Put same colors together.
And we'll separate the hives more.

I'm reading an article in the February American Bee Journal about raising bees without chemical treatment. It's interesting and I want to try some of the suggestions in the article, although I doubt our bee yard qualifies as being in a "remote" location even though we're only a mile from the George Washington National Forest. We're also a mile from Woodstock where several beekeepers have their hives. Nevertheless, some of the suggestions seem like they would apply across the board. The article by bee researcher, Dr. Tom Seeley from Cornell, gave this advice:

If you are in a remote place, the following suggestions could work for you -- that's what I'm trying with my bees now.  

First, disperse your hives or diversify them: paint the hives differennt colors, put them aiming at different directions. This way you minimize the number of bees drifting between the hives and lessen the spread of disease, especially mites and viruses.

The Big Snow and the Bees

It's too cold for the bees to be out and about, but the weather is above freezing and surprisingly some of them will check out the weather on the front porch when temps are in the upper 40s. They were actually flying a few weeks ago when the temperature got above 50 degrees and a few were even bringing in bright orange pollen.

After our big snowstorm I decided yesterday to treck out to the hives and clear the entrances. The snow was up to nearly the top of the bottom box covering the entrance which is at the base. They will be glad not to be trapped when the temperatures go up a little. Meanwhile, the rest of the snow is offering some insulation so we don't mind and I didn't clear it away.

Our two feet of snow pretty much covered the bottom box. That will
give the bees a little insulation from the cold.

Hmm...bees are trapped by the snow.

I cleared off the landing board and the sun will soon
melt the snow blocking the opening. 

All the girls are inside staying warm and keeping the Queen happy
(at least we hope that's the case). 

What's for Dinner? Turkey Alfredo -- Sort of....

Well, I am dealing with lots of holiday leftovers. and yesterday I decided to work on the turkey. It was leftover from Thanksgiving but was in the freezer and I took it out to make turkey soup. But I still had a lot of the white and dark meat separate from the carcass that I didn't want to put in the soup. What to do?

Hmm...why not a sort of Alfredo. So here it is.

Alfredo noodles if you have them or spaghetti or just about any noodle even Ramen would do, enough to serve 2-4. I used regular thin spaghetti because that's what I had on hand.

Three cups of cut up turkey meat
1/2 onion chopped
3 large mushrooms chopped
2 Tbs. butter
1/2 cup light cream
2 eggs
1 cup parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste

(Set water on to boil and add spaghetti while you are making the Alfredo Sauce.)

 Cook onion and mushrooms in butter. Add turkey meat and heat through. Remove from heat while you mix up Alfredo Sauce.

Alfredo Sauce: In a microwavable bowl heat cream until warm but not hot enough to cook the eggs. Beat the eggs and add to the warm cream with the parmesan cheese (I used the Kraft powdered because it's what I had on hand. Fresh would be better.) Mix well. Return turkey mixture to heat and add Alfredo mixture. Cook about five or six minutes until sauce thickens. Serve over spaghetti. Serves 2-4.

Ordinary Duties as We Return to Ordinary Time

The past few days I've found myself immersed in the ordinary duties of family life. After a week of a dozen house guests coming and going, I've been changing beds, doing laundry, putting away the punch bowl and party plates, cleaning out the refrigerator and making soup and freezer dishes from leftovers, picking up stray toys (I keep a stash for the grandchildren), and generally "redding up" as my West Virginia husband always says.

I actually like to fold laundry. Since my children were young I've made it practice to pray for those who will wear the clothes, sleep in the beds, use the towels, etc. Today I've also been praying to St. Anthony that all the items in the Camp Kreitzer lost and found will return to their rightful owners.

I find ordinary tasks soothing and a comfort. They remind me that amidst a world gone mad, a blessed family life can continue. As I straightened the family room I thought of all the evenings we gathered for night prayers and had an expanded "decade" of the rosary as everyone offered Mary a bouquet of flowers and a Hail Mary. To hear sweet little voices saying, "I give Mary a bouquet of blue bonnets" or violets, daffodils, tulips, roses, etc. reminded me of the little children of Fatima gathering wildflowers in the Cova. When we were finished Mary had quite a profusion of flowers around her virtual Camp Kreitzer shrine.

As I clear
off the dining room table (except for the puzzle still in process) I think of the birthday tea for two granddaughters using their great great grandmother's (my dad's mom's) hand-painted luncheon dishes. I'm sure she used them when she had her bridge club over although there are only seven sets left. Perhaps one got broken or lost or strayed. I also think of all the games played around that table -- and I don't mean video games. We learned a new word game (I can't recall the name) that involved giving clues but it was much less chaotic than Outburst or Password and even the middle school kids could play. It was lots of fun and lent itself well to large teams. The children's wilder games were relegated to the sunporch to separate their raucous laughter from the old ears of grandparents used to a quiet life.

What a lovely holiday! I'm never sorry to return to the more ordered and less chaotic routine of our "ordinary time," but there's always a twinge when everybody is gone. How blessed we are that our "empty nest" didn't last long. Our first grandchild arrived when our youngest hit double digits. I was missing babies when that little one filled my arms and they've never been empty for long since then. I don't really understand the grandparents who say, "Better you than me," when I tell them I'm expecting our 24th grandchild. I generally respond, "How can there be too many flowers in Grandma's garden?"

Every one of our precious grandchildren is unique and special: the "wild things," the calm, the dancing princesses, the musicians, the writers, the gamesters, the runners, the soccer and basketball players. Each one brings joy to our hearts and every night when Larry and I pray our rosary each of our five children and their families gets a special decade with offerings for their individual needs.

Ordinary time here is generally a peaceful time (although we are fortunate to have a family nearby who visits often) but I confess that I'm happy that Easter comes early this year because I always look forward to the return of my favorite people in the world.