Symbols of Summertime

This past week, I have had the opporunity to experience a couple of "pasttimes" that remind me of life out here in the Midwest. Last weekend was the Founder's Festival in Farmington, an annual weekend filled withstreet shutdowns (I wasn't TOO bitter, though it made for me getting lost a few times!), Art Booths along Grand Ave, local music, both healthy fare as well as elephant ears, the circus and carnival, and a parade. Although the weather was kind of chilly (it really was too, it's not just because I'm so warmblooded) and rainy, we didn't LIVE downtown, but we took advantage of Joel's last weekend off before he would have only sporadic ones and spent a good majority of the time enjoying "small town" America, inside the vast Detroit metropolis, hehe.

A smorgasbord of unhealthy food to meet all your high-fat needs :) The ironic thing is right next to this was a tent set up with some chef advertising this cookware that does not let any of the nutrients escape from the food.

One of the arts and craft booths... and they actually had our baby's name! The guy was also from Lafayette, IN (go figure) so my husband spent a good deal of time talking to him about his alma mater town.

Sir Liam of Farmington. :)

Who would my social husband be if he didn't spend an hour talking to a random stranger?! In this case, the random stranger was Curtis Kaisner. My husband and I were watching a local band play, when Joel was like "I think that guy up at the front is an AC or at least used to be". I asked him if he knew the guy and he told me no. When he expressed his interest in talking to the man, I told him that he could, but I would not be a part of this ludicrous and would stand off to the side with the baby. Well, my husband has the gumption I lack, and went up to him and asked him if his name was Curtis (he didn't know why he thought it was, he just did). Turns out his name WAS Curtis. He DID go to the AC church at one point in time. And he was just as talkative as my husband. ;)

Most of what we did was quite spontaneous, including me reading one morning as I was nursing the baby about a 4 mi run that began in 30 min, and mentioning to my still half-asleep husband tat next time we ought to do it with the baby. Next thing I know, he is out of bed, dressed and running to the park to start the race. My silly yet ambitious husband ended up doing quite well, although he had to try to hide in the pack because he did not make it in time to sign up. After Liam was done eating, we were off to cheer him on, but he finished so quickly that we missed out! Since we were so close to downtown, we ended up walking to Grand River Ave (the main street) and popped a squat to view the parade. I'm not sure the baby was a fan-- at least not of the emergency vehicles and their horns, as well as the Broadway star that sang. Apparently this must be a huge deal though, because MI's governor was there, along with the tw US senators and a couple of reps and city council people. After the parade, I had a momentary reminisce of home when we were able to get together for a quick lunch with the Huette's :)

Waiting for the parade to begin.

Botsford General is one of the main supporters of the festival. And of course some of the people in the parade spotted my husband and pointed us out to others. A true small town feel ;)

My baby all wrapped up. Joel thought I over dressed him, but when we sat in a shady spot and the wind was blowing, I think he agreed that the baby was dressed appropriately :) plus I wanted to try out the outfit on him, and not worry about tucking in a blanket while I was jogging...

Another symbol of summertime (besides all the green and rain), is being able to freeze corn. To preface this all (and to make sure, once again, that I relieve those that live in Phoenix that I am still not yet a "midwest" wife- which Natalie, there is nothing wrong with, but I am merely a temporary transplant that like a foreign exchange student is being immersed in the culture/lifestyle, thoroughly enjoying it, but in the end will return to her home ;) ... anyways, I must confess that I had to look up "corn shucking" to make sure I was indeed saying it right. Shucking is such a weird word. So is the term "putting up". Why can't you just say freezing? I mean, when you take it out to thaw, do you say "I'm putting down the corn from the freezer for dinner"? Oh well.

So I had the wonderful opportunity to go visit Joel's family in Remington early this week. Sherice Reinhard, who we had stayed with while we lived in Detroit for 2 months, is distantly related to Joel and is originally from Wolcott, the neighboring city. She was headed home to put up corn, and invited me and Liam along to just visit Joel's family. So after obtaining my husband's permission (I figured I probably should, since I have only seen him a few hours this week, as he has been on call the two days I've been home-- and will be this weekend too!), Sherice and I headed to Indiana. Sherice couldn't promise me corn, but invited me to stop by and see how "putting up corn" is done. Beth ended up getting a call from Brian Schneider though, who had an overabundance of sweet corn, and she went out to his farm Friday morning and brought back with her a truckload of corn. The rest of the day/evening/night was spent shucking, de-hairing (Random Fact: Did you know that every kernel of corn has it's own hair-- AMAZING!! ...thanks Miranda for teaching me Basic Corn Knowledge 101), cooking and cutting off the corn from the cob, and then finally "putting it up". :) I kind of like saying that term.

My nephew Dakota and others handed (or threw) the corn down to us to husk

It was a long day of hard work, but I guess it's the closest thing to being a farmer as I will get in terms of sweating to produce a "harvest". My friend JaNon asked me if I feel like a more virtuous woman when I put up my own food. It is fun, especially with the fellowship, and I think I will relish the corn more when I eat it later, but I think I have a long ways to go before I could even compare myself to the P31 wife. Something to strive for I guess :)

In the end, my husband who is already stubborn enough to refuse to eat frozen store-bought corn (and he DIDN'T even grow up on a farm!) will now be spoiled with 2 bushels of "put up" sweet corn, which Beth mathematically worked out to last us from September to May.

Oh one more random fact (though I actually learned quite a bit), did you know you can eat RAW sweet corn, freshly picked?? It's actually better for you, as a couple hours after you pick it, the sugars start turning to starches. I learned that one from my healthy mother-in-law, who prefers it that way.

Liam getting his first lesson in how to put up corn. It probably won't be the last. I'm kind of looking forward to doing it every year and watching him get more involved these next 5 years!

The more the merrier :) Lots of work and lots of mess and lots of cleanup!

Beth wanted to make sure there was no air in my corn that would cause freezer burn and lose that sweet taste. My husband is definitely spoiled ;)