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Sepia Saturday 287: Groups, Students, Unsmiling Faces

By Sheetar 11 July 2015 9 July 2015

Groups of students with unsmiling faces? This Sepia Saturday was built for me, I’m sure of it! One of the things my great grandmother Olga (Powis) Kitko saved over the years were her school photos, and we’ll go through a few of them today. There are still plenty more though, so this hasn’t exhausted my collection in the least. She was born in 1900, and in the photo above, she appears to be about age 8 or 9 or so (third girl from the left in the front row, marked with an x on her sleeve). There’s no date or marking on the back, but it’s a real photo postcard with an AZO stamp box showing three triangles up and one down which Playle’s guide says is 1911. Pretty exact, though I would have put my guess a year or two prior. The school here is probably the Blain City school house across the street from where Olga grew up.

This one has no identifying information with it whatsoever – nothing on the back at all and it’s even mounted on a heavy cardboard mat with frame. Best guess on this one is probably 1912 or 1913. Olga is third in from the left, front row. It appears to be the same school steps again as well.

This one is labelled on the back, “8th Grade Kids,” in Olga’s shaky handwriting indicative of her later years. That would make the date of the photo about 1913-1914 or so depending on when it was taken. Here Olga is on the left in the front row, standing again on the same steps as the prior two photos.

This is Olga’s High School Graduation photo taken about four years after the prior photo to finish out the set. In the folder with the photo, she included a list of the students, but it appears to be incomplete. It’s titled, “BTHS Graduates, 1919,” for Beccaria Township High School and lists these students:

Back Row: Covert Hegarty, Dean Gates, Dean Wagner, Hazel Mark, Violet Glass (missing 1 student)
Middle Row: Ruth Westover, Don McGeehen, Jim Patterson, Ann Nevling, Stella Holingsworth, Ruth Stewart, Mildred Beaber (all accounted for)
Front Row: Olga Powis, Blanch Ginter (all accounted for)

Not all the students have unsmiling faces – some have slight grins, but no full toothy smiles. It still gives me a smile to see Olga’s life documented out in school photos, and I’m glad these are still around to share!

Subscription Boxes

Goodebox July 2015

By Sheetar 10 July 2015 9 July 2015

July’s Goodebox just arrived this week, and I’m finally getting around to posting about it. Really a great box, and a near perfect fit! The only thing I rhave no interest in is the self tanner and would’ve preferred getting the mascara other folks got in their boxes over the tanner. I don’t tan on purpose (naturally/chemically/tanning bed) ever, and I find pale to be a naturally lovely shade. Work with what you’ve got! Anyway, the Sunstick is absolutely brilliant, the facial scrub is great, I’m already a huge fan of Yarok, and the toner is non-alcohol based, so those are all big wins in my book!

Acure Brightening Facial Scrub – 4 oz / $9.99 – (Sample is full size!) I was a little skeptical at first – brightening scrub? I’m a pretty fair shade to start with, if I go brighter/lighter, I’ll end up transparent! I’m not sure I completely buy claims like this anyway, so taken at face value as just a scrub, it’s a really great product with a fantastic ingredient list that doesn’t include sulfates, petroleum products, and is cruelty free. It’s a thick paste that almost looks like really chunky pesto and smells minty and botanical (but not overpoweringly so). It exfoliates well but isn’t as coarse as a sugar or salt scrub which makes it suitable for regular use, especially for someone with dry, thick skin. The price point is reasonable as well and may make this a new go-to for face scrubs.
Yarok Feed Your Shine – 1 oz / $26.40 – (Sample is .3 oz, value of $7.92) I’m already a huge fan of Yarok, so this product is perfect. The small, 10 mL dropper bottle feeds out drops of a blend of all kinds of oils, perfect for dry summer hair. The oil is pretty strongly scented, and smells, “Green,” for lack of a better term – fresh and woodsy, but not musky. A few drops on my second day hair ends brings them back to life and makes them glossy and manageable again. LOVE this product so much.
SunTegrity Self Tanner – 5 oz / $36 – (Sample is .25 oz, $1.80, or $1.95 on website) I’m not into tanning. I never go out of my way to get, “color,” ie, skin damage. Same applies to self tanner – it’s just another way to make your skin look damaged and promotes the idea that getting a summer tan is good for you when it’s absolutely not. This one is beet color based which is interesting, but it comes out as a jaundice yellow color on my skin. It doesn’t smell chemically though and goes on smooth and even feels moisturizing, but this product totally missed the mark for my preferences.
All Good Coconut Sun Stick – .6 oz / $7.99 – (Sample is full size!) I am THE WORST about applying sun screen. You’d think, after my rant above about tanning and skin damage, that I’d be THE poster child for sunscreen. I’m not. I should do better, and do put on sunscreen if I know I’m going to be out in the sun between 10am and 4pm, but sometimes a quick 15 minute weeding session to create some Vitamin D runs over and before you know it, burnt. Or, you go out to a festival and realize forgot the sunscreen at home. No more excuses! This is such an easy product to stash in a bag and cover your face and arms quickly without chemical blockers. The active blocker is zinc (physical blocker) which is great! Plus, it smells deliciously like coconut, is cruelty free, and contains a bunch of wonderful waxes, oils, and butters that are good for your skin. While it says it’s not waterproof, I found that it stayed in place while sweating when mowing the lawn due to the waxes. It still washed off easily with soap and water though, and can’t melt/leak in my bag which makes this the perfect to-go sunscreen solution.
Angel Face Botanicals Grace Antioxidant Facial Toner – 9 oz / $32 – (Sample is 1.2 oz, value of $4.27) A toner that isn’t alcohol based? AWESOME. Not a single alcohol in the ingredient list. Aloe juice seems to be the carrier liquid, and the product smells mostly like lavender which is great. It doesn’t feel drying and doesn’t make my skin feel tight afterwards. If I regularly used toner, this would end up being my go-to, but it’s just not something I feel the need to use really. It’s still fun to try out and I’m glad this was included!

Overall value of the box comes to $32.12 and is actually on the lower end for this box (last month’s was almost double this month’s). I’m not too bothered by the dollar amount though because the two full size products, the scrub and sun stick, are things I’ll use till they’re empty! Like I mentioned above, I’m a little bummed that I didn’t get the mascara in this box, but if there’s a coupon coming in email, I may spring for it anyway since I keep hearing how amazing it is. Can’t wait to see what they come up with for next month!

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2015 – Week 10b

By Sheetar 9 July 2015 9 July 2015

Still another catchup post, but I think as of next week I’ll be back on track. This week, even though the husband was home, I contributed a good bit! We have a basil plant that’s gone wild and before it bolted, I thought I’d gather up the basil and put it to good use as basil pasta and pesto. I blenderized the basil with some whey leftover from a batch of cheese the husband made earlier that week, olive oil, and a small amount of non-local pine nuts, then combined that mixture with flour to make the pasta (1 cup flour to 1/4 cup liquid). The meatballs were part veal, part pork with onions, chives, basil, and some salt and pepper, baked in the oven. Then grilled zucchini and a cucumber salad finish the meal along with a glass of mead (technically a pyment) from the Sap House Meadery in New Hampshire. Okay, that’s not entirely local, but it did follow us home from vacation and didn’t take a special trip to get here, so I’ll allow it!

For something special this dinner, we made dessert with leftover milk from the waffles last meal, honey, and raspberries from the bush in the yard. Paired it with a raspberry mead from Moonlight Meadery (another followed-us-home mead from New Hampshire). It was the perfect end to a lovely evening!

Ingredients:
Zucchini – Clover Hill Farm
Basil – My Garden
Cheese – Birchrun Hills, Equinox
Ground Veal – Birchrun Hills
Ground Pork – Countrytime Farm
Cucumbers – Clover Hill Farm
Onion – Clover Hill Farm
Flour – Whole Wheat Pastry Flour, Mill at Anselma
Milk Camphill Kimberton
Honey Baues’ Busy Bees
Raspberries – Our Yard
Raspberry Mead – Moonlight Meadery
Pyment – Sap House Meadery
Non Local – Pine nuts, salt, pepper, olive oil, homemade vinegar

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2015 – Week 10a

By Sheetar 7 July 2015 30 June 2015

Another catch-up week here, but to switch it up a little, we have a one local breakfast! Breakfast is a pretty simple meal to make, and we’ve become quite fond of our waffle iron (btw, our waffle iron is surprisingly amazing for the price and we get these ridiculously fluffy and perfect waffles from a cheapie iron, you know, in case you’re in the market for a waffle iron). Halving the recipe that comes with the iron gives us two full waffles, so it’s easy enough to do without a ton of cleanup. We even substituted honey for the sugar, so aside from baking powder, the waffles were as local as it gets! On the plate on the left is a delcious link of maple sausage, then, of course, maple syrup, a shot of espresso (not local, but absolutely necessary to fill my caffeine habit), and a small bowl of Maple yogurt. There’s definitely a maple theme going on here.. The breakfast was probably more of a brunch, but it was still a great meal to start the day!

Ingredients:
Eggs – M&M Creek Valley Farm
Milk – Camphill Kimberton
Flour – Mill at Anselma, Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
Honey – Baues’ Busy Bees
Yogurt – Seven Stars Farm, Maple Yogurt
Maple Sausage – Birchrun Hills
Maple Syrup – Miller’s Maple
Non Local – Baking Powder, coffee

Sepia Saturday

Sepia Saturday 286: Fish, Museums, United States

By Sheetar 4 July 2015 30 June 2015

This was a toughie. The Sepia Saturday theme this week is a drawing, not a photo, so it poses a bit of a challenge, but if I take it as a drawing or doodle, I actually have something that works! Grandpa Leon Kitko was quite the doodler, and in his sophomore year in high school at Beccaria Township High School (BTHS, which merged to become Beccaria-Coalport-Irvona high school after his sophomore year), he had a bunch of doodles of coal mining machinery. Having been fascinated with machines and how they work his whole life, and growing up surrounded by them in the coal mining country of central Pennsylvania, it’s no wonder he took to drawing them in his notebook. From a D-8 Caterpillar bulldozer, work truck, to a Bay City coal shovel, he covered the more commonly seen pieces of equipment. The work truck is even labelled, “George B Lynch, General Cont, Wil, Del,” presumably, Wilmington, Delaware. I don’t know of anyone by the name George Lynch who was friendly with the family, but he apparently saw the truck often enough to commit the name to memory.

There are some other things still in the notebook other than blank paper – there’s an assignment for English II dated May 25 and May 10 of 1949, so I have to imagine these doodles date to about the same time. There’s also what looks to be a final exam schedule along with room numbers, dates, and times. There’s a page with two addresses that don’t seem to correspond to any family members. It’s interesting though to see what he jotted down and left behind in the old notebook and it makes me wonder if there’s some old notebook of mine out in a box in the garage with odd notes and addresses scribbled inside! My high school friends and I had a habit of stealing eachothers books and writing weird notes and sayings all over the school-required brown paper cover, and I’m not sure I can even remember what they were about at this point. I’d have to imagine that even if Leon was still alive, he might not be able to explain addresses from over 50 years ago! One last image as this Sepia Saturday draws to a close, the cover of the tablet including his name, school and grade.

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2015 – Week 9b

By Sheetar 2 July 2015 30 June 2015

Another installment in the catch-up posts for One Local Summer. Husband had originally planned to do these pork chops on the grill, but the sky got dark and opened up so quickly that he ended up pan searing with the cast iron skillet and finishing it up in the oven. Apparently, this is my new favorite way to cook pork chops because I have never had a pork chop quite so perfectly juicy before. Pork can go from juicy and moist to shoe leather in a split second it seems, but man, skillet in the oven is IT. Even though it was delicious, I only managed to finish off half of that pork chop because of the ridiculous amount of veggies. Steamed green beans and carrots, that huge salad as usual, and then potatoes with olive oil, chives, and onions. Top that all off with a glass of Spring Wine from Chaddsford Winery and we have a great rainy day dinner.

Ingredients:
Radishes Full Circle CSA
Turnips Full Circle CSA
Mushrooms Oley Valley Mushrooms
Lettuce Full Circle CSA
Carrots – Full Circle CSA
Cucumber Clover Hill Farm
Tomatoes Clover Hill Farm
Potatoes – Jack’s Farm
Pork Chops – M&M Creek Valley Farm
Chives – My Garden
Onions – Clover Hill Farm
Green Beans – Jack’s Farm
Wine – Chaddsford Winery, Spring Wine
Non Local – Olive oil, salt, pepper.

One Local Summer

One Local Summer 2015 – Week 9a

By Sheetar 30 June 2015 30 June 2015

We’ve gotten rather ahead of ourselves with One Local Summer, so I’m going to double up this week with two posts to get back on track. Sometimes we just cook local meals by default and then I forget what week we’re on and things all go crazy. I figure doing extra local meals isn’t a bad thing and since we made them, I might as well share them! So, here’s a catchup post and in two weeks I’ll be all caught up, I hope.

We dug into the freezer for this one and found a Bison roast. Husband rubbed it down with freshly ground pepper and salt and put it on the rotisserie on the grill. While I realize it may be blasphemous to red meat eaters, the end chunk was cooked nicely well done (brown the whole way through) but was still tender and DELICIOUS. Also cooked on the grill were those skewers with zucchini and tomatoes, covered in olive oil, salt, and pepper, then there’s a cucumber salad with red wine and vinegar, and finally the salad bowl just like every week, with the same mix of greens and vegetables. It all came out great, and we found a local Cabernet Sauvignon to pair with the dinner.

Ingredients:
Radishes – Full Circle CSA
Turnips – Full Circle CSA
Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms
Lettuce Full Circle CSA
Cucumber – Clover Hill Farm
Tomatoes – Clover Hill Farm
Bison – Backyard Bison
Zucchini – Clover Hill Farm
Wine – Sand Castle Winery, Cabernet Sauvignon
Non Local – Salt, pepper, olive oil, homemade vinegar

Sepia Saturday

Sepia Saturday 285: Postcards, Hotels, Buildings

By Sheetar 27 June 2015 25 June 2015

Another “Nailed-It” sort of entry for Sepia Saturday! Going back to last week’s image, we have two more from the set of photos taken during grandpa Leon Kitko’s senior year of high school. His senior class took a trip to Washington, D.C., in May of 1951. Apparently they stayed at the Hotel Harrington, and Leon took a bunch of photos in front of the hotel as they stepped off the bus. As you can see from the Google Street View image below, the scenery has changed a good bit – the big Hotel Harrington sign along the side of the building is gone, and the only remaining structure to let me know I had the right side of the building is that fire escape ladder. Going back to the trusty yearbook for the 1951 class at the Beccaria-Coalport-Irvona high school, we have in the left photo above, a gal who looks to be Cleo Grimes. In the right photo, well I’m not entirely sure who that is. I have a hunch that, in the class trip photo at the bottom, the center two people are teachers, possibly Marcella Papcun and Dale Troy, and we’re missing the student Martin Auberzinski. The dress/hair match the woman in the center back row, so I’m pretty sure that’s Marcella, plus it makes sense to put two teachers who served as chaperones in the center back row. A news story about graduation is below as is the big group photo in front of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. This post ended up needing a bigger room in the Sepia Saturday hotel, but it’s all for a good reason – we’ve got some extra luggage this week! It’s a lot of data, photos, links, etc, but as usual, I hope this all helps someone else in the long run.