What a wonderful morning it is! Sunny and cool, with just a hint of Fall in the air. A few more dry days and P. Jaye will be able to plant her cool weather garden. Spinach, kale and turnips, beets and brussel sprouts. The planting of our Fall crops extends the joy and satisfaction we glean from gardening. We live as independently as possible, here on our farm. The freedom to produce our own food is not taken lightly, nor are the health benefits we reap for our family. I cant imagine being unable to have a garden. P. Jaye reminds me a garden gives you hope, for to garden you must have hope for the future. You are always looking ahead to next years garden, talking with one another about new varieties you want to try, new techniques you will experiment with. Hours will be spent, heads together, poring over the latest seed catalogs, as excited as children trying to decide what they want for Christmas. The work in a garden is never-ending. However, I know of no better source of personal satisfaction. Multitudes of pleasures are available to gardeners. Tilling the sweet soil in the Spring and/or Fall, the fragrance of the newly turned ground, possesses nuances only Mother Earth can provide. We love going to the garden centers, the feed and seed stores. The mixture of aromas, wafting through the air in these, the holiest of gardeners many haunts, is intoxicating. I still remember, vividly, the smell of the old Mayos garden center on Chapman highway. My mother would go there, with the six little Clark kids in tow. How I loved that place. How I pined for it when it was gone. I recall growing big enough to be allowed to run moms old, front tine, rototiller. That tiller would Jar yore granny!, as my grandfather would say. I would let the bouncing, barely controllable tiller, (it would run away, with or without you), advance, then yank it back, consciously aware of my growing, ten year old strength. I would pull it back, again and again, in an active attempt to control the surging beast with raw power. It gave me a good outlet for an adolescents angst and in fact, did increase my strength...tilled the heck out of the garden, too! I still have that old tiller, living in my barn, waiting to take me on again. As you might imagine, my mother taught us all to garden. Back then, we gardened as much for survival as anything else. We picked green beans by the bushel. In fact, when the green beans were in, each of the older children were given the task of picking a bushel each, before we were allowed to stop. One particular day, one of my sisters was having a rough time of it. She cared little about gardening, as did most of us at that time. My sister sulled-up and refused to pick another green bean. Mom assured her she would receive a switching if she didnt pick her bushel basket full. The rest of us finished ours and were allowed to go back to the house. Not my sister, she sat and cried, instead. Mom left her there in the garden, crying her eyes out, after admonishing her once again, repeating her earlier ultimatum. The rest of us got cleaned up, ate supper and went in to watch tv. It was almost dark when here came little Cindy, still crying, dragging her bushel basket behind her. In case you havent figured it out by now, once mom set you a task or told you to do a thing, she would never relent. Todays kids could use a little more of that, I believe. We grew many vegetables and mom canned or froze them all. We worked up the apples from our apple trees. Later, mom and our great-grandmother would make gallon after gallon of applesauce. I loved to work up apples, still do. It meant I got to use a sharp knife while coring and cutting the apples into pieces. Then the apples were cooked down in the giant kettle mom used for everything, pinto beans mostly. Afterwards, the cooked apples were loaded into the Foley mill and we would crank and crank until our arms were worn out. This process separated the skins and any seeds from the pulp. Sugar was added to taste. Then the applesauce was canned or frozen. If there is anything better than freshly made, still warm applesauce, I dont know what it is. Some of the applesauce was cooked down for hours and spices added, producing apple butter. Unimaginably delicious. Moms philosophy on canning was this. We needed three years worth of beans, etc., put up. Her reasoning being, You need one years worth in case of a crop failure, another years worth in case I get sick (dad didnt garden) and the last one to get you through this year. To this day, Ill bet you can still discover cases of green beans under her bed, in her closet...anywhere she can find to store them. Of course, her basement shelves were always full. We picked blackberries for jelly, also. It was a big undertaking. There were buckets to find to pick in, (later, we would use plastic milk jugs). You had to dress accordingly. Jeans tucked into your socks, long-sleeved shirts were a must. Mom would break out the sulphur and sprinkle us liberally around our ankles, sleeves and waistband...anywhere a chigger would be apt to attack. You also needed a stick to ward off any snakes you might disturb while you were tromping through the blackberry briars. Mom, our grandmother Babo and the rest of us, would then set out to pick gallons of the delicious fruit. We picked in all the best places on the farm first. Later, we loaded up in a car or boat, depending, and set out to forage for any berries we could find. It seemed to me then, there must be an infinite number of blackberries to pick in the world and a very short window of opportunity in which to do it. This was no leisurely activity, it was done in earnest, under the blazing sun, dodging every biting, stinging critter in our world. Again, the fruits of our labor were cooked down, run through the food mill, sweetened and jarred up. Cobblers were made. Blackberries and milk was a favorite breakfast treat. We picked plums in much the same fashion, sometimes adding plum juice to blackberry juice to make a delicious, mixed fruit jelly. For the best plums, Mom and Babo would load us all up and off to Douglas Lake we would go. There, we would board Babos boat and head across the lake to where the plum trees were located. We picked and picked, filling all our containers. Later, we might get to hunt for arrowheads or crystals, stopping at many different places along the lake in our quest for treasure. Usually, Babo brought along what she referred to as Hobo stew, it was merely a large piece of tinfoil, folded into a pouch and filled with a hamburger patty, sliced onions and potatoes. This was very exciting, as we were allowed to participate in the building of a fire. After our fire died down to coals, mom and Babo placed all our meals on the coals to cook. While we were waiting for them to cook, we would go for a swim. Many times, Babo would pull us all over the lake on water skis. After we were worn out, we returned to our campfire and raked our meals out of the coals. The meals, plus Vienna sausages, and soft drinks, seemed, to us, like a feast made for a king. We returned home tired, but happy at the days great adventure. I reckon that is more than enough for now. I got a bit off-track anyway, as I am apt to do. Dont forget that ol Uncle Butch loves you!
Posted on: Thu, 14 Aug 2014 16:57:52 +0000
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