Saliha's great writing effort reminded me....... I was once asked to write about my experiences growing up on a farm. Not being anything near a writer, I made the effort, without expecting anything coherent to come of it...... We were pleasantly surprised when the piece turned out, well, y'all can judge............
At Granny’s Farm
My mother’s family is spread over and along the West Virginia/Maryland
border. Most of them were farmers and miners until my generation, which
is spread in every direction, vocationally and geographically.
I was practically raised by my maternal grandmother and my mother’s two
youngest sisters. My Granny’s name was Cora. She looked like anybody’s
Grandmother, dressed in long dress, always with an apron. Her hair, a
million shades of gray, was pulled up in a bun, and she would have made a
good Mrs. Claus. I saw that bun undone only twice in all those years, both
times in the middle of the night when she had to come in the room because
I was sick or some such. I never knew her to be sick. When I was little,
say five, I realized that my grandmother always had, and probably always
would, smell like cookies.
Every summer until I was thirteen was spent on my grandparents’ farm.
They raised chickens and sold the eggs and, to a lesser degree, the
Chickens. All holidays were spent there. EVERYBODY came "up home"
for the holidays.
Granny’s kitchen was big as three normal living rooms. There was no
running water, just a cold sink. There was a pump on the porch, and a
springhouse just across the lane from the house.
The first thing that grabbed you, as you came in the front door was this HUGE, black wood burning stove.
What a monster! When we were "little" this was our favorite winter place to
play; in the space between the stove and the wall. Granny worked what I still
consider being small miracles with that big old iron stove. How she
controlled her temperatures in that oven, just by pouring a little water into a
small compartment in the outer wall, in my view ranked right up there with
brain surgery. When I was about four or five, all twelve of her children
kicked in and bought and installed an electric range. She used the oven that
day, but I don’t think that stove ever got used again, except to hold a lot of
noncooking items on the top and pots and pans in the oven compartment.
Only the kitchen was wired for electricity; it was coal oil lamps in the
rest of the house. That stove was the primary heat source in cold
Weather; that, and a coal pot belly stove in the living room. Upstairs, you
slept between blankets in winter, not sheets, on a straw mattress if you were
a kid, a down one if you were an adult.
I loved being at Granny’s. I got to eat really neat stuff, like venison,
Squirrel, wild Greens, big, round loaves of bread. Granny utilized a lot of
The things nature provided. There was a walnut tree halfway out toward
the "hard" road that gave us some great snack items every year. Granny
said I was a great walnut picker. Granny had a small assortment of
Shoemaker’s tools that was perfect for getting at the meat.
There was plenty of cooking and canning happening almost all the time as
Things came to maturity. And every Sunday, I would help Granny put down
four chickens or so, which would go for Sunday dinner, a pot pie and maybe
soup for later in the week. By age ten I had learned to appreciate the
many manifestations of a Chicken carcass. I also learned very early on that
a Chicken doesn’t need a head to still run around a bit.
Granny never worked with complete recipes. She didn’t use measuring
Spoons - she used the cup of her hand. She had a regimen; Monday Wash
Day, (there was a wash House.) etc. to Friday, which was baking day. On
Friday, I hung about the kitchen a lot, but I didn’t learn a thing... except a
Pavlovian lesson or two. I’ve since learned that, while Cooking is an Art,
Baking is a Science!
I flunked Science!
I inherited Granny’s six cigar boxes of hand-written recipes. I almost
always have to flesh out a "procedure" paragraph when I type up one of her
Gems. Granny wrote recipes as if you already knew stuff that she knew,
But of course we didn’t, and still don’t. I must have a reasonable handle on
it tho’; the recipes almost always seem to work out, somehow.
A typical summer day.....
I’d get up as soon as it was light. The house would already smell like it
knew I was hungry. I would eat breakfast and do my assigned chores;
bring in wood to fill the Wood Bin, gather eggs and feed the chickens. Then
I’d take 15 eggs to the Bowers Farm in a molasses can and return with a
gallon of milk. I’d drop off milk and...
GO.....................
(Part Two to Follow..........)
At Granny’s Farm
My mother’s family is spread over and along the West Virginia/Maryland
border. Most of them were farmers and miners until my generation, which
is spread in every direction, vocationally and geographically.
I was practically raised by my maternal grandmother and my mother’s two
youngest sisters. My Granny’s name was Cora. She looked like anybody’s
Grandmother, dressed in long dress, always with an apron. Her hair, a
million shades of gray, was pulled up in a bun, and she would have made a
good Mrs. Claus. I saw that bun undone only twice in all those years, both
times in the middle of the night when she had to come in the room because
I was sick or some such. I never knew her to be sick. When I was little,
say five, I realized that my grandmother always had, and probably always
would, smell like cookies.
Every summer until I was thirteen was spent on my grandparents’ farm.
They raised chickens and sold the eggs and, to a lesser degree, the
Chickens. All holidays were spent there. EVERYBODY came "up home"
for the holidays.
Granny’s kitchen was big as three normal living rooms. There was no
running water, just a cold sink. There was a pump on the porch, and a
springhouse just across the lane from the house.
The first thing that grabbed you, as you came in the front door was this HUGE, black wood burning stove.
What a monster! When we were "little" this was our favorite winter place to
play; in the space between the stove and the wall. Granny worked what I still
consider being small miracles with that big old iron stove. How she
controlled her temperatures in that oven, just by pouring a little water into a
small compartment in the outer wall, in my view ranked right up there with
brain surgery. When I was about four or five, all twelve of her children
kicked in and bought and installed an electric range. She used the oven that
day, but I don’t think that stove ever got used again, except to hold a lot of
noncooking items on the top and pots and pans in the oven compartment.
Only the kitchen was wired for electricity; it was coal oil lamps in the
rest of the house. That stove was the primary heat source in cold
Weather; that, and a coal pot belly stove in the living room. Upstairs, you
slept between blankets in winter, not sheets, on a straw mattress if you were
a kid, a down one if you were an adult.
I loved being at Granny’s. I got to eat really neat stuff, like venison,
Squirrel, wild Greens, big, round loaves of bread. Granny utilized a lot of
The things nature provided. There was a walnut tree halfway out toward
the "hard" road that gave us some great snack items every year. Granny
said I was a great walnut picker. Granny had a small assortment of
Shoemaker’s tools that was perfect for getting at the meat.
There was plenty of cooking and canning happening almost all the time as
Things came to maturity. And every Sunday, I would help Granny put down
four chickens or so, which would go for Sunday dinner, a pot pie and maybe
soup for later in the week. By age ten I had learned to appreciate the
many manifestations of a Chicken carcass. I also learned very early on that
a Chicken doesn’t need a head to still run around a bit.
Granny never worked with complete recipes. She didn’t use measuring
Spoons - she used the cup of her hand. She had a regimen; Monday Wash
Day, (there was a wash House.) etc. to Friday, which was baking day. On
Friday, I hung about the kitchen a lot, but I didn’t learn a thing... except a
Pavlovian lesson or two. I’ve since learned that, while Cooking is an Art,
Baking is a Science!
I flunked Science!
I inherited Granny’s six cigar boxes of hand-written recipes. I almost
always have to flesh out a "procedure" paragraph when I type up one of her
Gems. Granny wrote recipes as if you already knew stuff that she knew,
But of course we didn’t, and still don’t. I must have a reasonable handle on
it tho’; the recipes almost always seem to work out, somehow.
A typical summer day.....
I’d get up as soon as it was light. The house would already smell like it
knew I was hungry. I would eat breakfast and do my assigned chores;
bring in wood to fill the Wood Bin, gather eggs and feed the chickens. Then
I’d take 15 eggs to the Bowers Farm in a molasses can and return with a
gallon of milk. I’d drop off milk and...
GO.....................
(Part Two to Follow..........)