Farmer Boy

When I went to the used book store last week, the Bonsai book was not my only purchase, I also bought two books for Blaze, one was a bird identification book and one was Farmer Boy, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. We started off reading Farmer Boy as a bedtime story, but Blaze has been enjoying it so much, I am now reading aloud 2 chapters at night and 2 chapters in the morning.



Unlike the rest of the books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy is not about Laura's life at all. It is about her husband, Almonzo's childhood in New York State. Where many of Laura's childhood stories have to do with being pioneers and struggling to survive, Almonzo lived on a prosperous farm. Laura's frequent focus on the abundant food available to eight year old Almonzo, has caused me to refer to the book as, "food porn for eight year olds", when DH and I are talking about the book and Blaze is not around.

There is a description in the book about how a cup of popped popcorn can be added to a cup of milk and the milk will not overflow it's cup.

"You can fill a glass full to the brim with milk, and fill another glass of the same size brim full of popcorn, and then you can put all the popcorn kernel by kernel into the milk, and the milk will not run over. You cannot do this with bread. Popcorn and milk are the only two things that will go into the same place."

- Laura Ingalls Wilder
from Farmer Boy
Chapter 3: "Winter Night"


Well, after reading that, we just had to try it.










It does work.
We didn't waste all that good milk and popcorn, either. Blaze ate it like cereal. I tried a couple bites, too, and it did taste like corn cereal. My mom told me when I was a child that popcorn had been the first cold breakfast cereal, that that was how the Pilgrims ate it.




Blaze also made his first woven pot holder. We started this a couple weeks ago and it's been very slow going, but the descriptions of Almonzo's mother weaving in the book, gave us motivation to finally finish.

This pot holder loom is a family heirloom of sorts. It was my mother's first. As a child, I used it to make pot holders as gifts for my mother and grandmothers. Ula and Nika made pot holders on it and now Blaze is using it. I like it because it is made of sturdy medal, unlike the plastic ones they now sell at the craft store.