First of all, before I start hounding you about lambsquarters for the third week in a row, I have to tell you that my gorgeous and brilliant granddaughter, Ariel Humble, just graduated from TCU! We are very proud of her. Yayyy Ariel!
Now, back to lambsquarters: I want to be honest with you and tell you that the reason I am still on this kick is because I couldn’t think of anything else to write about. But I promise you, this is good information.
What to do with lambsquarters
First pick you some. I am more than eager to share mine with you. Take it home, discard any tough stems, wash it. Put it in a pan with some water. You don’t really have to cover it with water, because it will cook way down. Simmer till it is tender, which won’t take long, then drain it and set aside. Chop you a bunch of onion, start sauteing it in some olive oil or coconut oil or butter, then throw the lambs quarter in there and saute it, too. Salt it and maybe add a little vinegar. Eat it with some beans and cornbread and onions. Yum yum.
I’ve been busy! Doug Humble Jr., my business partner and former husband has been in town for two weeks. That is a good thing, as we get our heads together to make plans for the future of our companies. But that means for the last two weeks I’ve been spending business hours tending to business rather than running around town taking pictures and spreading good gossip, which is my regular occupation. So if you haven’t heard much from me lately, now you know why. And it looks like I’ll still be kind of tied up doing real business for at least another week.
And then at night and weekends I’ve been socializing and good-deed supporting, besides discovering a great new friend who has accompanied me to some of these nifty things. There was the Henderson County Performing Arts Gala, The Sculpture Garden Tour, The Greencards performance at the Country Club, and the Family Peace Project Waffle Breakfast. And we had just barely caught our breath from the Cornbread Festival. Now a bunch of us at Cedar Lake Home Health and Hospice are preparing for the Relay for Life this Friday to raise money and awareness in the fight to end cancer.
Oh my goodness. Just writing about all this makes me tired again. But I’m going to sit here in my jammies this morning and spend just a few minutes telling you how good these groups are, and about how good it is to get involved with them. (I do wish they didn’t all come at one time, though.)
First, there is HCPAC, or the Little Theater to us old timers. Most of you know how great it is, but if I could just convince one or two of you who don’t know to go see just one show, I will have done you a favor, and you will be hooked. And maybe you’d like to audition for a part, or help sew a costume or build a set. They have jobs that take a lot of time or a little. You will meet fantastic, super talented people who will welcome you with open arms. Continue reading “Around Malakoff: Busy week of fundraising”
I hope you are all ready to go to the East Texas Artists and Sculpture Garden Tour this Saturday and Sunday. If you are reading this Thursday afternoon or Friday, it is not too late to get your tickets at the early bird price of $25. But if you are reading this Saturday morning, you can just show up at the James and Barbara Stewart Residence in Bridgepointe or Malakoff Community Center, the Bartlett House, or Joe Surls Memorial Garden and buy your ticket at the gate. It will cost you $35, but will certainly be worth every cent.
Loretta Humble
I’ve think by now everybody knows the details, but if somehow you’ve missed it, go to www.malakofftexas.com, or call me at 903-681-2880 and I’ll tell you all about it.
I’ve finally been working in my garden, I’m happy to say. I have planted tomatoes, squash, eggplants, onions, peppers. And I’ve made a little herb garden outside my back door.
I went to the seminar on square foot gardening, and bought all the stuff it takes to do that, then decided that my garden dirt isn’t too bad, and I certainly have a lot of it, so if I just mixed all that good stuff I bought with it, I could stretch my good stuff a whole lot further, and if it had a box around it, I could keep track of things better. So I got some help and now have one big long box in my garden, containing most of the vegetables I just told you about, though some onions and most of the tomatoes are out on their own. Some of the tomatoes are doing wonderful. I got some help with some post hole diggers, and was able to plant some of them the way Donald Hughes plants his. He digs a really deep hole, puts some fertilizer in the bottom, covers it with some dirt, then plants the tomato, nearly up to its neck in that hole. Those I did that way are looking fantastic.
Now I want another box to plant more stuff in it, but I don’t know where to put it. I don’t want to disturb the lambsquarters. Mama told me some people eat that stuff, but we never did. Then I read how healthy it is—it is one of the most nutrient-filled green there is. One year I ordered seeds and tried to grow it, but with almost no luck. Last year it came up in the garden, and while I used some of it in my green smoothies, I never got serious about using it. But since I knew it was nutritious and I ought to be using it, I kept letting it grow. It took over the garden, choking out other plants. Some monstrous sized bushes of it grew, with roots too deep for me to pull up.
Finally we got it up in the fall and tilled the garden. Again this spring we tilled. And then it started coming up again, millions and millions of tiny lambsquarters. And it grows quick. It wants to take over.
But this year I’m welcoming and using it. I just go weed my onions and I have greens for supper or for my green smoothies. It tastes great. Donna Rinn comes and gets it, and so does my daughter Liz when she gets around to it. Luckily, I’ve got the best blender for veggie smoothies.
I never have been able to grow spinach, but this weed is every bit as good, there it is, a garden full of it. I’ve got to not let it take over everything, but I also need to let some of it make seed for next year. I’ve finally found something I can really grow. I’ll bet Donald Hughes couldn’t grow better lambsquarters than mine. I’ve got to hang on to this stuff.
Let me know if you’d like to try some, of if you’d like me to save you some seed.
An unidentified firefighter examines the hole in the front of Mary Queen of Heaven Church in Malakoff Thursday caused by a car slamming into the wall. (MICHAEL V. HANNIGAN PHOTO)
By Michael V. Hannigan
MALAKOFF — Secretary Carol Leonard was working as usual in her office at Mary Queen of Heaven Catholic Church in Malakoff Thursday afternoon when she heard a crash and photos and paintings started falling off the wall.
She ran out the front door and was greeted by the back end of a car sticking out of the church less than 10 feet away, with the wheels still spinning.
“The tires just kept going,” she said, adding that the car dug itself deeper into the church as she watched.
“It was obvious somebody’s foot was still on the accelerator,” she said.
The accident sent the driver — who police identified as Robert Nokes, 38 — to the hospital via helicopter and started a fire that officials say caused the inside of the church to be “a total loss.”
The church is located on County Road 1703, across from the Malakoff High School football field. It was established in Malakoff in 1996.
Malakoff Police Chief Billy Mitchell said the call reporting the accident came in about 1:45 p.m. and that Police Officer Robert Siegmund was the first one on the scene.
According to Mitchell, who arrived not long after that, Siegmund worked to get Nokes out of the car while Mitchell used a fire extinguisher ordered from mrfireextinguisher.com on a fire which began underneath the vehicle, thankfully the fire extinguisher available at mrfireextinguisher.com are highly efficient and effective in controlling the fire.
Mitchell said it was Siegmund’s work that allowed them to get Nokes out of the vehicle and transferred to EMS and then careflighted to the hospital.
“(Siegmund) got up in the car with the fire and everything,” Mitchell said.
Nokes was reportedly unconscious when he was careflighted, but no other update was available as of this post.
No one knows for sure what caused the accident at this point.
Malakoff VFD Assistant Chief Bubba Matthews said the fire started with the car, but got up into the ceiling of the church, causing it to spread through the building.
Matthews said firefighters had to drag the car out of the church with a firetruck because flames kept igniting around the vehicle.
Departments responding to the fire included Malakoff, Trinidad, Log Cabin, Payne Springs and Caney City.
Members of Mary Queen of Heaven Church wait and watch firefighters work Thursday afternoon. Pictured in the background are Pastor Rev. Fr. William Palmer and Bishop Joseph Strickland. (MICHAEL V. HANNIGAN PHOTO)
For approximately a quarter of a century, the “Sunken Gardens” of the Bartlett House, a historic “ruin” in Malakoff, have been overgrown and covered in debris, much like the Bartlett House itself.
For the first time, the renovated “Sunken Gardens” will be unveiled to the public at as free open house April 27-28, as part of the East Texas Art and Sculpture Gardens’ Tour in Malakoff. Wear comfortable shoes. The properties are not handicapped accessible.
The other two sculpture gardens on the tour, The James Surls Sculpture Garden and the James & Barbara Stewart’s Sculpture Gardens require a ticket for admission. Tickets can be acquired online at www.malakofftexas.com or at the Malakoff Community Center.
As part of the celebration of the resurrection of the Sunken Gardens well-known in the 1930s and 40s for their beauty, several of the best East Texas artists who were selected to be in the book published for the tour will be showing in the heritage gardens surrounding the Bartlett House.
Bill Williamson, a fast sketch artist, will be available to draw pictures of visitors for donations to the Historic Bartlett House and Heritage Gardens. Williamson is a sculptor who spent his professional career working with and in zoos creating the backdrops, scenery and sculpted elements that comprise the animal exhibits.
Two outstanding artists who will be showing in the Bartlett House gardens – open to the public at no cost – will be Jan G. Blackmon, FAIA, and Craig D. Blackmon, FAIA. They are abstract sculptors and photographers who recently won two consecutive Best in Show awards in the Main Street Gallery in downtown Tyler. Craig is an extraordinary photographer whose architectural photographs have been published in magazines and books nationally.
Robert English, from Tool, also plans to be showing his realistic sculptures in which he thematically focuses on country and ballet subjects, both in appreciation of the expression in the human face and body.
Four artists from Athens plan to show, including Christie Barrett, Cheryl Hicks, Celene Terry, and Deborah Wood.
Margo Stamp and Lou Albright from Ben Wheeler also plan to show in the Bartlett House gardens.
On the ticketed portion of the tour will be two other sculpture gardens. The James Surls Sculpture Garden: A Memorial to Joe Surls, will have four of the five nationally renowned sculptors present to meet with visitors: James Surls, George Tobolowsky, Bill Wiener, and Polly Smart. The James Surls’ gardens are gaining national attention because it is the largest concentration of James Surls’ early art, with over 40 pieces on the property, and, also this year and next, will feature major new sculptures by Surls, Tobolowsky, Wiener and Charmaine Locke.
A dinner/talk Saturday night featuring the Surls’ nationally prominent artists will be discussing their work with dinner guests in the Malakoff Community Center. Reservations are required (www.malakofftexas.com). Seating is limited.
James and Barbara Stewart’s private Sculpture Gardens located on Cedar Creek Lake will also be open in Malakoff. Winner of the “Best Texas Residential Landscape,” their gardens feature sculptures by numerous nationally prominent sculptors Glenna Goodacre, W. Stanley Proctor, Gary Lee Price, David Pearson, Walt Horton, Terry Jones, and Jo Saylors.
Ticket and book sales receipts go to the Greater Malakoff Area Garden Club, which owns the Historic Bartlett House and Heritage Gardens to restore the property.
