You either get it or you don't.

Chickenfight Girl's son just graduated college. He cleaned out his apartment in Auburn and dumped all his stuff at his parents' place. She gave me a couple lamps. She pulled a small coffee grinder out of a box. "What's this?"

Me: A coffee grinder. For grinding whole coffee beans.

Chickenfight Girl: Huh. I've never seen one. I never buy whole coffee beans.

Me: I don't much either anymore. But I prefer whole coffee beans. Just can't always afford it.

Chickenfight Girl: Why is the stuff in here green? That's not coffee.

Me: Let me look at that. (removes lid, scrapes a fingernail across the green powder and takes a whiff) Nope, that's definitely not coffee.

Chickenfight Girl: What is it? It's not coffee.

Me: Uh...well...You can use it to grind other stuff too. I've used mine to grind corn for tortillas. You could technically grind up a lot of different stuff in there. Wheat, rice, beans...

Chickenfight Girl: So it could be, like, wheat germ or something?

Me: Yeah, wheat germ. Or something.

Chickenfight Girl: Do you want it?

Me: Yes. Thank you.



For those of you who didn't really get the above exchange, please enjoy this picture of Lemuel hula-hooping around the bonfire one recent summer evening:




There's something awesome about watching an almost-7-foot farmer bust a move with a hula hoop. Lemuel is really quite good with a hoop. Lemuel and Shadrack actually make and sell hoops. If you're at a farmer's market in East Alabama/West Georgia and you see two dudes spinning hoops and selling okra at the same time, tell 'em Jackie from Spenardo del Sur sent you. You won't get a discount or anything - it would just be a cool thing to do.

Old school from waaaay back

Among the many things I salvaged from my grandmother's old house (before turning it into a chicken coop) were lots of school textbooks from the '30s and '40s.

Here are some of my favorite color illustrations from the 1936 edition of "The Body and Health." The book credits the illustrators as Mildred Lyon Hetherington, Helen Bilger, Irene Dorcy and Grace G. Mitchell. As always, you can click to embiggen.