Snooky And The Homemade Chocolate Milk In Grandma’s Summer Kitchen Every weekday after school, a fourth-grade girl called “Snoo ky,” would go straight to her grandmother’s old-fashioned “summer” kitchen and fix herself a tall glass of homemade choco late milk. “Yummee!” Snooky would say, downing a tumbler full of the creamy drink and smacking her lips afterward. “That really hits the spot.” A few moments later she would take the glass into the reg ular kitchen where her grandma cooked meals for her grandfather and two men who needed a home. “Thank you, Grandma,” Snoo ky would say, rinsing the cloudy, milk-stained glass under the water tap. Then the glass would be set aside until the next time her grandma washed the dishes in hot, soapy water. Meanwhile, with her tongue, Snooky would continue licking the brown streak of chocolate res idue that was still above her lip. “You’re welcome, Snooky,” Grandma would say an shoo off her youngest granddaughter across the dirt driveway to her own house. Snooky thought Grandma al ways knew how hungry a kid was after walking a mile and a half home from school. That’s why Grandma could be counted on to have something tasty stashed away in the summer kitchen. Maybe kids today never heard of a summer kitchen. It was a pantry, a work area, kitchen, and diningroom all rolled into one. Snooky’s grandparents would al ways eat their meals there in the summer because it was so cool and comfortable. The regular di ningroom was used only when company came calling. Could This Be A ‘Harebrained’ Study? UNIVERSITY PARK (Centre Co.) Those tired cliches and puns just won’t stop coming. When it is suggested that he is trying to pull a rabbit out of a region, Duane Diefen bach just smiles ruefully, shak ing his head. “They are not rab bits, they are hares snowshoe hares,” he said. “In Pennsylva nia, they exist only in parts of the Northern Tier, and this study will try to determine just where their populations per sist.” The adjunct assistant profes sor of wildlife ecology in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences doesn’t think it’s a “hare-brained” scheme to have researchers survey a 15,000-square-mile region of the sparsely populated, mostly for ested northern counties, includ ing the Poconos. They will be armed with hand-held comput ers and global positioning (GPS) units, looking for what researchers euphemistically refer to as “pellets” fecal matter. Because the pellets “depos ited” by snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus) are indistinguish- This summer kitchen had a modem big electric refrigerator where Snooky’s grandma would store the raw cow’s milk from the farm. The milk was not pas teurized or homogenized. Her grandma would skim off most of the thick cream that rose to the top of the milk. She would save it for later to churn into but ter. And another thing her grand ma did with the cream was to whip it up all light and fluffy with sugar for a luscious topping to slather on desserts like ginger bread. Anyway, since her grandma didn’t always want to stop her work to prepare Snooky’s choco late milk, she showed Snooky how to do it herself. Snooky would begin by mea suring out a heaping teaspoon of powdery cocoa from the Her shey’s can to drop into the glass tumbler. A little brown cloud would rise out of the glass and she would swoosh at it with her hand. She would heap in sugar that was at least double the amount of cocoa. “Let’s see,” she would mur mur, “I need a dash of salt, too.” So she would get the salt shaker on the table and shake some in before blending everything with a spOon. Next, Snooky would pour a wee bit of hot water from an old teakettle over the cocoa and sugar and stir it to form a soft brown paste. Snooky would stir the paste until the sugar in it stopped squeaking. If it didn’t sqeak, she knew it was all dissolved. That’s when it was ready for the bluish-looking milk. The milk didn’t appear quite as blue once able from those left by Appala chian cottontail rabbits (Sylvila gus obscurus) and eastern cottontail rabbits (Sylvilagus americanus) that also thrive in the region, DNA testing will be used to determine where the hares are. The GPS units and computers will allow research ers to electronically mark loca tions of hare droppings and eventually to draw maps show ing the range of the hares. “It’s kind of a crap shoot” Diefenbach pauses, catching himself in yet another pun. “This method has not been tried before in Pennsylvania, but we are optimistic that this ap proach will allow us to de termine the range of the snow shoe hare here. Our state is at the southern periphery of the snowshoe hare’s range, and habitat use by this species is not well understood.” The research project in triguing because of its high-tech approach to a rather mundane activity is titled the “Distri bution and Large-Scale Habitat Associations of Snowshoe Hares in Northern Pennsylvania.” It is one of 15 approved for funding * Korner** K 9 she shook the bottle to blend in the remaining cream. She would add only a little milk to the cocoa paste at first, then little more until the glass was full. Oh, boy, she would swallow long and hard to quench her thirst for the best drink in the world. MILK! “Yununee!” Snooky would say. “Does that ever hit the spot.” Afterward, she sometimes looked around and tried to un derstand all the stuff her grand ma saved in the summer kitchen. There was a square table of dark wood where grandma’s family sat on unmatched hand made chairs to eat. After she washed the dishes, Grandma would often take the clean, everyday dishes back to the table and arrange the plates and silverware for the next meal. Snooky could see how grand ma had filled a big heavy comer cupboard in the summer kitchen with all kinds of things. And the dark sideboard buffet that matched the table had compart ments for her best silverware, ta blecloths, doilies, aprons, and ruf fled dust caps. Snooky, however, didn’t give a hoot about Grandma’s dry sinks, old magazines, newspapers, wilt ing plants, or an old church pew stacked with odds and ends against the wall. Nope. The chocolate milk that she could make freely in Grandma’s summer kitchen was all that mat tered to a fourth-grade girl. And ever after, when Snooky grew up, she never stopped lov ing chocolate milk. by the Pennsylvania Game Commission and the Pennsylva nia Fish & Boat Commission to benefit the state’s most troubled wildlife and fish species. Using monies allocated to the state from the federal State Wildlife Grant Program, the Game Commission is providing $BO,OOO of the $115,000 project cost, with the university supply ing the remainder. “The snowshoe hare is a spe cies of interest to hunters and nonhunting wildlife enthusi asts,” said Diefenbach. “Al though hunter harvest data by county provides a gross mea sure of hare range in Pennsylva nia, hares likely are patchily distributed and associated with specific habitat types. “Presently, hares are hunted in Pennsylvania, but a very con servative one-week season has been established because the ef fect of hunting on the popula tion, as well as habitat require ments and trends in abundance, are unknown,” he said. “Great er hunting opportunities or hab itat improvements might be im plemented if more was known about the distribution and habi tat requirements of hares in Pennsylvania.” Cottontail rabbits and snow shoe hares are a lot alike, but there are some important differ ences. First and perhaps most obvious, snowshoe hares are adapted to living in northern climates where there is near constant snow cover in winter. Subsequently, they have larger back feet to help them maneu ver on shifting, slippery surfaces hence the name “snowshoe.” And hares’ fur turns white in the winter to help them blend into their surroundings and avoid predators, which accounts for their other common name “varying hare.” “Another important differ ence between hares and rabbits is not so noticeable,” said Die fenbach. “The young of snow shoe hares emerge from their mother able to run, while cot tontail rabbit babies are more or less helpless at first.” One final clich about rabbits that is true for hares: They re produce like, well rabbits. “Hares are very productive, similar to rabbits in that re spect,” said Diefenbach. “A fe male hare might have three lit ters a year.” LMHS Junior To Attend Governor’s School For Ag Sciences LANCASTER (Lancaster Co.) Lancaster Mennonite High School (LMHS) junior Loren Hershey, son of Les and Lois Hershey, Kirkwood, has been se lected to attend the 2003 Penn sylvania Governor’s School for the Agricultural Sciences this summer. He was also chosen as an alternate for the Pa. Gover nor’s School for Global Entrepre- neurship. In addition, junior Jennifer Wenrich, daughter of Martin and Esther Wenrich, Leola, was cho sen as an alternate for the Gover nor’s School for the Agricultural Sciences, and junior Angela Diet zel, daughter of Dan and Joanne Dietzel, Strasburg, was selected as an alternate for the Governor’s School for Teaching. The Governor’s Schools of Ex cellence are a comprehensive set of residential summer programs conducted on college campuses. This year over 3,700 applications were received and only 824 stu dents could be chosen; 0,1 & * '•'iL ft'
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers