wednesday's words and wanderings and wonderings

One can certainly see the signs of Spring in Ohio. The birds begin to chirp as the sun rises, eventually bursting into the full bird chorus, right outside of our bedroom window. We've had a lot of rainy days - you know that old saying, "April showers bring May flowers" - and by the amount of rain we've had, May should be overflowing with flowers. The Great Miami River is running fast and high. The structure that is currently in the river is along the bike path on a dry day. It shows where Dayton's first settlers landed. It was a beautiful, sunny day to walk along the river in my winter coat.

Foodwise, I had fun making chicken piccata and instead of serving it with pasta, I served it with Spaetzle that we had purchased when we visited Frankenmuth, MI. This Italian-American dish was delicious with German noodles. Also after requests for almost a week, a big batch of chocolate chip cookies. "Make them like Joanie's (my mom)," which means they're crunchy and a little flat. The cookies turned out as requested and my Cookie Monster is a happy guy. The recipe made four dozen cookies so a couple dozen are in the freezer for next week's company. I did a volunteer stint at Miami Valley Meals and in my two hour stint, we filled over 300 meal trays to be distributed for those who need them.

As I left Miami Valley Meals, I heard a train crossing the bridge that passes over the river so I hurried up the embankment to get a photo. In my hurried moment, my finger became part of the photo. I laughed when I saw this. Back in the day, my mom let me take pictures with her Brownie camera and there are lots of photos that document the place along with my finger. 

On my little road trip over to Xenia to see the tornado memorials, the James Galloway house showed up on my route. James Galloway and his wife came to Greene County in 1798, building his cabin on a bend in the Little Miami River in 1799. The Greene County Historical Society moved the cabin to its current location in 1965. Again back in the day, my mom and her dear friend loved to go exploring and between the two of them, would pack Mrs. Hedley's VW van with their eight kids to go see historical sights. Fast forward a few years, I enjoyed doing counted cross stitch, I found a pattern of the James Galloway House and made it for my mom. She hung it in her kitchen and it stayed there for many years. When it was time to sell her house, I asked Mrs. Hedley if she would take it, as a memory of hauling eight kids around in that VW van. We had a good laugh about those days of historical enrichment.