My Own Creation - Banana Walnut Upside Down Cake

I made this cake a couple of weeks ago, for the first time. I wanted a cake with a broiled topping, without the fuss. The results were very good, my husband loved it and none went to waste. I think that it would go well with an apple-cinnamon cake batter as well, just substitute chopped apples for the bananas, and add a teaspoon of cinnamon to the dry ingredients.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed firmly
• 1/2 cup butter

Mix first three ingredients and spread into the bottom of a 10" parchment-lined cake pan. (The first time I made this, I didn't line the pan and some of the nuts stayed in the pan. I used a silicon baking pan also, but not necessary.)

• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups mashed bananas ( about 3 large)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda

Cream together sugar and butter until light, add eggs and beat 1 min.

Add mashed bananas and vanilla and mix well.

Sift dry ingredients together and add to batter, combining well.

Spread over nut mixture (batter is quite thick) and bake in pre-heated 375 F. oven for 40-45 min.

Loosen from edge of pan and turn out onto cake plate immediately.

Remove parchment and cool for a few minutes.

Cut into squares and serve warm, with ice cream if desired.

The Mallorytown Glassworks 1825-1839/40?

The Mallorytown Glassworks was a small factory, established by United Empire Loyalists and their descendants.

from the Colonel Edward Jessup Branch of the United Empire Loyalists' Association of Canada:

The Mallorys of Mallorytown

In 1790, Nathaniel Mallory left Vermont and settled with his family along the St. Lawrence River at Mallorytown Landing. Shortly afterwards they moved inland to the area of the village that bears his name. Nathaniel and his wife had 13 children, the youngest Catherine being the only one who was born in Canada.

At the end of the American Revolution, Nathaniel's son Daniel had already come to Yonge Township along with his brother Lemuel and cousins Jeremiah and Elisha, settling in the Broken Front and First Concession.

The Mallory sons were an enterprising group with David running a store and a brick yard where more than one million bricks were made and Andrew operating a glass factory. A plaque erected east of the village by the Ontario Archaeological & Historic Board reads in part - "A short distance from this site stood the first glass-works known to have been established in Upper Canada., in operation from 1839 to 1849. Its owner during these years was Andrew W. Mallory, a descendant of the family that founded this community. The articles produced included bottles, flasks, glasses and other household wares." Other Mallorys were farmers, operated a lumber yard, had mills and in later years the cheese factory which produced a cheese that won a major prize at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. Some of the family fished commercially, including eel fishing for the New York City market.

Daughters and granddaughters of Nathaniel married into local families leaving Mallory descendants with names such as Guild, Seaman, Ducolon, Truedell, Armstrong, Kelly, Judd, Shipman, Trickey, Andress and Eyres. Many people will remember Dr. Mallory, who practiced in Brockville for many years. There are still a number Mallorys living in the area as well as many descendants with these and other surnames.

The Mallory family donated land for part of the National Park System. There are a couple of books in the Brockville Library telling the story of branches of the family. Many records are in the Archives and in land books that tell more about this large and interesting family.

They manufactured free-blown glass vessels and containers with the use of only basic tools. The materials were what was locally available, white Potsdam sandstone, which was abundant. Because of the chemical make-up of the sandstone, the glass was an aquamarine colour. The glassware is very rare and valuable today, and most pieces are found only in museums.

The pieces above are from the Royal Ontario Museum

This piece is from the Glenbow Museum in Alberta.

Here are two pieces from the Canadian Civilization Museum

Collectors Have Always Been Green

Collecting is an environmentally-friendly hobby, we're all about reusing, and recycling. A collector will look for a vintage or antique item or something that can be used in it's place before buying a new product. There are a lot of advantages to recycling and reusing, and collectors have known about them for years.

One advantage is that the quality is in most cases far superior to the modern product, the boards used to make a piece of furniture were wider from old trees. More time was taken to make it, often handcrafted, and there was a sense of pride in workmanship. The quality of the materials used in antique furniture is far superior, made of real wood, not sawdust glued together with a veneer laminate to look like wood. This reduces the toxins released into the air from the adhesives and plastics.

This goes for textiles as well, a hand-sewn item will often last longer than a brand new one. The clothing of the past was made well, and made to last, so that it can be passed down to younger siblings when too small. The fabric was made of natural materials; cotton, wool, silk, linen and hemp. The apparel made today can be ruined by one single loose thread being pulled, most manufacturers use a chain stitch IMO for this reason. If the article gets too close to a flame, it will melt, so it is treated with fire retardant during manufacturing, more toxic chemicals.

Some of the older glass was also hand-made; hand-cut, hand-painted, hand-blown. The glass industry has perfected the process so that there are no imperfections, but it is those imperfections that collectors look for, it tells how and when it was produced and makes the item more unique and desirable.

Another advantage is monetary, it is less expensive to buy an antique piece of furniture than a new one of comparable value. I can't see anyone collecting mass-produced pieces in the future, they don't last, manufacturers call this "planned obsolescence". If the products don't last, the manufacturer can sell more products. This goes for almost every product that is sold today. The resale value for these products are very minimal. The resale value for antiques and collectibles is always on the increase, an item will almost always appreciate in value.

Besides the reasons that I have mentioned above, the result of collecting is a reduction of toxins into the air from the manufacturing process, the reduction in energy resources and the reduction in natural resources to make the product. At the same time, we teach our children by example about being frugal with money, about not being wasteful, get them interested in history and preservation and an appreciation for fine workmanship.

Gardening - Spring Cleaning

Well, it's been a long, cold winter and I'm anxious to get out and do some yard work again today. I'm still sore from the yard work I've done already in the past two days. The weeds seem to grow under the snow, as soon as the s now is gone, chickweed is everywhere.
My gooseberries look like they made it through the long, cold winter with no damage, they should produce some fruit this summer. The Butterfly bushes need to be cut back today, and I think I'll give the Trumpet vines a good pruning too. If I had it to do over again, I would have planted the trumpet vines in containers, there are shoots coming up all over the yard.

Creating - Family Websites

I have been pre-occupied lately with creating my family website at FamilyLobby.com. It is creating so I decided to write about my adventures. I started out with a free site, but my family is too large, so I had to opt for a paid site. I started out by deciding on my theme, searching for the right style. I wanted a transparent theme, the background picture didn't matter, since I was going to change it anyway. I tried out quite a few different themes before deciding.

I decided on a theme and spent a lot of time looking for the right background picture for the site. Since I called our site "Nuts in my Tree", I had to find the perfect picture. I found this drawing which was an open source drawing from the turn of the century, and decided it was what I was looking for. I like the gathering of squirrels, waiting for the nuts and the owl standing guard.

Next, I started customizing the site, changing the colours of the fonts, borders, arranging the homepage, etc. I ran into a problem with the navigation being on the left, it was getting too long and confusing, so I changed to a drop-down list at the top of the page, it looks much neater.

I made a "members only" category and put all of the private pages here, so members will remember where to post. I have the privacy set so a visitor sees the homepage, news, guestbook and some public pages that are included as default such as For Kids. I added a couple of more links that are favourites of my grandchildren too.

I started thinking of making some custom pages, so I had to change the font colours again to something that would show up on any background. I chose a grey colour that will show up on light and dark backgrounds.

I sent out the first newsletter this week too, it was quick and easy to compose. Every member has the ability to publish a newsletter, so if there's an announcement they want to make to the rest of the family, they can do it. I think this is a great feature for announcing engagements, births, etc. The newsletters have tie option of being put on the website as well, so that those who didn't receive the newsletter, such as visitors and guests, can read it too.

Since the family site has to be geared to all ages, I posted different things that the kids would be interested in, like posting their Easter egg colouring photos, etc. I also posted instructions for using the website that I hope will help them with any problems they have.

I also hunted up a few gadgets for them to play with, games, virtual pets, I even found an app. for Guitar Chords for my grand-nephew. I put links to Facebook and My Space in the "Member's Only" section for the older kids and adults too. I also added links to family reunion sites there, to keep everyone informed. I added links to free clipart and backgrounds as well that they can use in their posts.

I'm still playing around with it, adding to it when I think of different ideas. I was thinking about linking a couple of pages to my Viviti site with more features available yet. I think I'm going to try it, that way we could have eBay listings and PayPal buttons, Twitter, etc. I'm heading there now, I'll let you know if it works

Gardens - Water Gardens

I have been familiar with water gardens from childhood, my mother was ahead of her time, when, in the 60's she decided to put a small pond in her garden, with water lilies, fish and a fountain.

At that time the resources for building a home water garden weren't readily available so she had to improvise. Mom used a rigid vinyl kiddie pool with a fountain pump in it. It'a a lot different now, today, you can buy pre-formed pond kits in many sizes and shapes, or do-it-yourself kits with pond liners at your local department store or hardware store. There are even stores that specialize in water features that will help you decide what you need and how much if you want to do it from scratch.

The first water garden I made in 1994, I started from sratch, I used the pond liner that's sold by the metre on a roll. I found that it is the best way, with a large pond. A pre-cut 12' square liner sold in a kit would be enough to make a 6 foot pond that is 2' deep. If you want to make a shelf you have to add the depth of the shelf onto the measurements. It is advisable, in colder climates, to make the pond a depth of at least 3' so it doesn't freeze solid. So, where I live, a 12' square liner would make a pond 4 ' x 3' deep and I wanted a larger pond.

The second water garden I made years later, and I had different circumstances and considerations. I wanted a shallow pond, because I had grandchildren at this time, so I started with a kit. It was large enough for my purposes.


I decided to go with an idea I saw on a gardening show, I can't remember which one, where they used old sinks to make a waterfall. the sinks were placed in tiers with liner betweeen the sinks with pebbles on the liner and rocks around the edges leading into a pond. I liked the idea, but my space was limited and the ground was too level, so I decided to raise the sinks, so I made a waterfall with an old cast-iron bathroom sink on a concrete pedestle, overflowing into a copper kettle, over some rocks and into a kitchen sink and then into a single laundry tub and into the pond.


A few years later, the grandchildren were getting bigger, so we decided to expand the pond.


We wanted the original pond to connect to the new pond, which is 3 1/2' deep, so we made a stream to connect them, and bonded the two liner pieces together where they overlapped. Now we needed a bridge to go over the stream, it had to be wide enough for the lawn mower and garden tiller to be moved easily, and sturdy enough to be safe for the grandchildren to run across and jump on.


I also had to remove my clematis from the arbor that we used for our wedding, and start it growing on the fence that was being built there. It was a slow process, I did have an advantage in that the arbor was constructed in small lengths, held with screws, so I just dis-assembled the arbor, sliding the pieces out of the plants. I then wrapped the vines around the fence-posts and up around the rails, and started training them. They have come through the re-placement with flying colours.

Genealogy and Collections

Genealogy is one of my interests, collecting is another. I thought that I would combine the two in this blog. I have, since I was young, been interested in anything that was "old". I started out collecting fossils and coins, I saved any coin that was older than me. I was always on the look-out for Indian arrowheads, although I never came across any.

Now, I collect things like my grandmother and great-grandmother might have used in their kitchens, mixing bowls, sifters, a range set, some enamelware, etc.. I have a lot of depression era glass as well as some antique transfer-ware, and I couldn't pass up a couple of baby bottles that were made the year my dad was born.

I started collecting flowerpots, because they reminded me of all of the violets that my grandmother used to grow all over the house, they were always in full bloom. I also have my grandmother's mahogany lamp table, and a couple of old oak school desks with all of the dents and scratches of years of students use, one of which my youngest grandson sits at whenever he's here.

I have a cradle that is really primitive and rustic, it looks like it was home-made, it must be at least 150 years old. I don't know who made it, but I like to imagine all of the babies that were rocked to sleep over the years in it. It is well-worn and it still works, I used it for my youngest grandson to nap in when he was small, he used to like just sitting in it, rocking and playing with his toys. When he grew out of it, he started keeping his toys in it.

Another item I collect is books, history, local histories, Canadiana, and I have some old local newspapers from the early 1900's, too. I have some that used to belong to the first mayor of Leamington, which have articles about his elections and the greenhouse industry from WWI era.
When you think about it, genealogy is just another kind of collecting, collecting family history.