Mulling Over Life

for the Writers Cramp about Grange

Use in your story or poem the following - bold for tomorrow's judge:

an egg

miserable zucchini

a gallon of milk

three cats

hot pepper sauce


.I just knew that miserable zucchini had to be used up today without fail. If I put it off any longer it would go bad and it was still a very nice zucchini. It did not fit in the refrigerator drawer with the other produce.

I opened the ancient Grange recipe book. I would like to tell you the name of the recipe book. I can’t because I bought it sometime in the 1970’s. At some point in time the book lost it’s front page. Everything before page 9 is now loose leaf. The only totally missing page seems to be the front cover. Names of people and the grange they are a member of are all listed under the recipe they submitted.

One whole section is recipes submitted from Friends in the Nation’s Capital. Mrs.Warren E. Burger, wife of chief justice of the United States Supreme Court submitted a recipe for Jellied Veal.

The book has everything. A chart for Substitutions, Metric conversions for the kitchen, diabetic recipes, quantity recipes. Besides the normal recipes.

A recipe from Mrs. Wayne George, grange # 691, Lakeside, Oregon, is called Tartar Sauce Extraordinaire an amazing variety of ingredients including Tabasco a Hot Pepper Sauce.

The official name of Grange is National Order of Patrons of Husbandry. Husbandry refers to the production of plants and animals used in agriculture. A community minded group based the first grange in Fredonia, New York in the year 1868. Now it has a building in Washington D.C.

The Grange spread rapidly throughout the nation. It helped educate farmers and encouraged modern farming methods. The organization encouraged women to be members and arranged social community meetings. Grange lobbied for free rural mail delivery. It promotes community economics and agriculture. The official organization has gone through surges of memberships and losses of memberships, since it was first spread across the USA. There is a list of Grange buildings throughout the USA in Wikipedia.

A postage stamp was issued in 1967 honoring Grange. A Western music song honoring Grange named Grange Hall Dance by Chris LeDoux. Yes! The song can be found on YouTube.

Back to the zucchini. I have to have an egg so it is off to the chicken coup. Usually there are eggs in the refrigerator just not today. I stopped by the barn to pick up a sheep staff. We have a rooster in the coup who protects the hens. It has spurs the length of about 3 inches and uses them on any intruder with gusto. I sneak a peek inside the door. As soon as I get my full body inside, the fight is on. He waves his wings and all the feathers on his neck seem to stand straight out. He crows a loud warning. Awkawakadoo, he yells, as he stalks me. I wrap the curled end of the crook around his scrawny neck and shove him into a corner while I explore under a hen sitting on a nest. Two fresh warm eggs are quickly gathered and I back out of the coup slamming the door behind me.

I store the eggs in the refrigerator then run to the barn to do the milking. We keep goats. Goats milk has a different molecular structure than cows milk. We get milk and meat both from the goats. I usually gain a gallon of milk in the morning and one in the evening. There is always enough extra to make cheese. Cottage cheese from goats milk tastes like Nordica. Have not seen Nordica on the grocery shelves since Covid.

The meat from goats is leaner which means it has less fat, than pork or beef. The contents of the meat is more similar to deer than cows. Using goats' milk in any recipe is used in the same quantity as milk in any other recipe.

When I start cooking in the kitchen I always have an audience. There are dog beds under the kitchen windows and old pizza boxes under a counter. Our three cats, Flower, Scamp, and Adicus are curled up watching everything I do. Maybe they are hoping I will drop some scraps for them but, not today. There are lots of zucchini recipes to choose from and this is a large zucchini.

Zucchini is a very mild flavored squash. Therefore, many recipes containing zucchini have other flavors in them. One thing about using it in a recipe it will help your recipe to be a softer baked item. Zucchini bread can be flavored with lemon, strawberry, mint, cloves, chocolate, or actually anything that you think will be an interesting meal addition.

One cup of raw zucchini has 21 calories, 1.5 grams of protein, and is a good source of vitamin B6.

Zucchini Bread: 2 cups flour/ 1 teaspoon soda / 1 teaspoon cinnamon / 1/2 teaspoon cloves / 1/2 teaspoon salt / 1 cup of sugar / 1/2 cup butter / 1 large egg / 1 cup zucchini / 1 cup raisins / it can also contain crushed walnuts. Bake at 325 for 20 minutes or until center is done. You can check the center with a toothpick.

It's 2025, I no longer keep a coup or chickens or dairy goats. The three cats I listed were not with me when I farmed for my family. I always had the dog beds and cat beds around since the pets always like to watch the process of cooking.

The other information is real at some point in my life. Although Grange was not active in our community when I was raising a family Rural Electric is still active here.

We did not always keep roosters, since they get mean and possessive in a hen house. The one I mentioned came to a violent end because he was seriously a threat to human health.

word count by WDC: 986 Bolded words = an egg, a gallon of milk, hot pepper sauce, miserable zucchini, three cats