Martin House Pie

My sister-in-law, Marcia bakes the best pie in the Midwest.  People come from all around and stand in line just to buy a slice of her pie.  She doesn’t sell her pie, but has a suggested donation of $1.00 to help recoup some of her expenses.  Needless to say, she’s losing money!  Why, you can’t buy a slice of store-bought, junk-filled pie for less than $3.00!  We’ve tried to encourage her to increase her suggested donation, but so far she hasn’t budged.  Sadly, most people want something for nothing so it never dawns on them that paying only a $1.00 is ultimately taking advantage of Marica’s generous heart.  It is a rare customer who offers her more.  Seeing that her expenses are increasing annually, Marcia conceded to letting me make a little sign to help people understand, in a fun-loving way, how much goes into a slice of pie.  I titled it,

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IT’S WORTH?

Customer: How much is your pie, ma’am?

Martin House Baker: Well…. Let me see:

·       We hand-picked each piece of fruit in the hot scorching sun.

·       We washed, pitted and peeled each fruit by hand.

·       We hand-mixed all the filling ingredients.

·       We rolled each layer of pie crust until it’s paper thin.

·       We chopped and hauled loads of wood for the oven in the frigid cold.

·       We baked 80+ pies, in the heat of the day, over a wood burning oven.

·       We hand-carried water to wash the baked-on stickiness of pie plates.

·       And… we emptied nearly every ounce of love that is in us into each and every mouth-watering slice of pie!

Why, I don’t know….what would you say it’s worth?

While her customers may still not get the message, Marcia’s greatest reward is the fun that she has baking for others and watching them enjoy her labor of love!  She’ll quietly and humbly serve you a slice of her labor and never think to ask, “What would you say it’s worth?”

Whole-Heartedly,

Bonnie

P.S.  Please feel free to contact me with questions, thoughts, topics you’d like to ponder or to read past articles at: http://whole-heartedlife.blogspot.com/.  You may also contact me at:

             Bonnie Jaeckle

             In Search of the Whole-Hearted Life

             Diagonal Progress

             505 Jefferson St.

             Diagonal, IA 50845

The Martin House

It’s a great feeling to see the end result of something that you’ve invested a lot of blood, sweat and tears into.  That’s what we are experiencing today here at Marigold Meadows.  We are putting the finishing touches to our newest addition, the Martin House.

My sister-in-law, Marcia loves to bake pies.  In fact, she’s known as the “pie lady” in our neck of the woods.  We don’t live in the west, so I guess you’d say, “Her pies are the best in the midwest!”  During the festivals that we hold at Marigold Meadows, she bakes pies in a wood burning oven and sells them by the slice.  While the rest of us might like to think that people attend our festivals to watch demonstrations of age-old skills of sustainability and/or to listen to our music, I’m thinking that a good number of them come just for her pie!

Previously, Marcia baked pies in a wood-burning oven that holds only four pies at once.  Needless to say, it took a while to bake the 80+ pies that she bakes in one day!  Additionally, the little log cabin that she worked in over the past seven years is really too small for her and her helpers to work efficiently.  In order to make her work easier and quicker, brother Art spent most of this past winter building her an oven that will bake 16 pies at one time and designing a larger cabin!

Last spring, Art, Gary & I went to Sandridge, a nearby forest to cut pine trees for building Marcia a larger cabin.  What an experience!  I’ve helped to down trees before, but never in a forest!  For several days, “our” little corner of Sandridge was humming with chain saws, winches, a little Ferguson tractor, pondering out loud, grunts, groans and sounds of frustration, as well as, a lot of laughter and cheering.  While it was exciting, it was also hard work and downright dangerous!

While we hoped to use our draft horses for pulling the logs out of the woods, our Spring was so wet that we had to keep putting off getting into the forest.  Running out of time in order to get the cabin done before our fall festival, we decided to use Art’s trusty ol’ Ferguson for that purpose.

One of our music companions, Gene Martin lives near to Sandridge.  Gene, who is in his 80s, was so excited about what we were doing and wanted to help in some way.  As it turned out, Gene had a type of lift that was perfect for loading the logs onto the trailer.  So, whenever we were ready to haul more logs home, Gene faithfully showed up at our worksite.

Once we transported the forty-some, seventy-five foot trees the thirty miles to our property, we began to prepare lumber for the new cabin.  Using his mill, Art sawed while Gary & I cleared away the slab wood, carried lumber to the building site, etc.  For the last three weeks, the saws have been buzzing and the hammers ringing at Marigold Meadows.  It didn’t take long for the word to get out about what these three “crazy” people were up to.  Before we knew it, there were car-loads of people showing up to see the progress!

While Marcia isn’t too verbal about her appreciation and excitement, she shows-up every couple of days to see the progress and to take pictures.  The smile on her face tells it all!

• She now has more floor space for herself and her helpers to move about.
• They’ll all be cooler while they work.  With the new oven having been built into the wall, its heat stays in the wood room behind the kitchen.
• They’ll be able to serve pie not only over the counter inside the cabin, but through a serving window to the outside, as well.
• They no longer have to carry the dirtied pie plates to the old washtubs outside the cabin.  While there is no running water, the new cabin is complete with three sinks and a drain!
• With lots of countertop space, she and her helpers will no longer be bumping elbows while they work!
• And when the work is done and it is time to store everything away, with all the cupboard space that she now has, Marcia will never wonder where it is all gonna go!

I think Marcia is more than pleased and we’re anxious for Gene to see the end result.  Won’t he be surprised when he sees that we’ve named the new cabin in his honor, “The Martin House?”

Whole-Heartedly,

Bonnie

P.S.  Please feel free to contact me with questions, thoughts, topics you’d like to ponder or to read past articles at: http://whole-heartedlife.blogspot.com/.  You may also contact me at:

             Bonnie Jaeckle

             In Search of the Whole-Hearted Life

             Diagonal Progress

             505 Jefferson St.

             Diagonal, IA 50845

The Logo

This week my writing time has been spent on designing and sketching.  I’m working on a logo for our Lloyd Loar’s Hometown Bluegrass Festival.  I wanted my design to be unique and descriptive of Lloyd Loar, yet clear enough to use on letterhead, t-shirts etc.  While color and highlights, etc. will greatly change its appearance, I thought it’d be fun to explain how I developed my design and show you what it looks like, so far:

1)      Considering that Loar was the genius behind the acoustics of many instruments, I needed to include an instrument in my design.  Since Loar is best known for his engineering of Gibson’s F5 Mandolin, I chose to sketch an outline of it.

2)      The original F5 has “The Gibson” written on the head; I wrote “Lloyd Loar” on the head of my design, instead.

3)      Our festival is located in Loar’s hometown, Lewistown, IL.  I took advantage of the space on the fingerboard (neck) of the mandolin and placed the word “Hometown” there and “Lewistown, IL” just under it.

4)      The F5 has two sound holes, one on each side of the body’s front.  I scrolled the word “Bluegrass” to fit the shape of one sound hole and the word “Festival” to fit the other.

5)      I liked what I had designed so far, but something was missing.  My design looked somewhat “empty”.  Obviously, I didn’t have strings on my mandolin, but I was concerned that they’d be too much.  I wasn’t sure how to incorporate them and still use the neck space for wording.  Studying my design, I began to see that the strings could be drawn so that they appear as though they are extensions of the letters in the word “Hometown”!  I gave it a try and I really like the effect!

While the logo is still evolving and the scan doesn’t show the strings real well, here it is so far!  What do ya think?

 Loar%20Logo.rtf

Whole-Heartedly,

Bonnie

P.S.  Please feel free to contact me with questions, thoughts, topics you’d like to ponder or to read past articles at: http://whole-heartedlife.blogspot.com/.  You may also contact me at:

             Bonnie Jaeckle

             In Search of the Whole-Hearted Life

             Diagonal Progress

             505 Jefferson St.

             Diagonal, IA 50845