Farm Living

Every year about this time my built-in timer goes off and I find myself strangely motivated to prepare for the winter.

I need to get back to the kitchen -again. Beans are about half strung. This bunch I am going to cook and EAT!!! Next bushel will be for canning for the long winter months. How I long for the days on the farm when everything we ate came from our cellar. We had jars of jelly, apple butter, pickled beets, corn relish, dill pickles, sweet pickles, sweet relish, green beans, peas, corn, peaches, apples, rhubarb, blackberries, and pears. The bins were full of potatoes, carrots and sweet potatoes. In big crocks we had sauerkraut, pickled corn and pickled beans. There were jars of canned sausage balls. We made our own mincemeat for holiday pies. We made souse meat using the head of the hog that was butchered by the 'boss'. So good. We bought bacon by the slab and cut it our self. No packaged sliced bacon, just jowl bacon which was used for flavoring beans, both the green beans we canned and the dried beans we had shelled.

The grease from the bacon was used for making gravy for morning biscuits and for frying potatoes, corn or cabbage. It was a simple life but so much more peaceful than what people have today. We didn't worry about what the neighbors had. We didn't worry about keeping up with the times other than the news.

I am so thankful I grew up living on the farm. Today I wish I could spend time hoeing in the dusty rows of corn, beans and potatoes. Oh, if only we could have seen the future when we were young. We would not complain so of the work we had to do. Now I am too old to walk, let along stand in the heat of a dusty garden. I am glad I can sit in a chair as I prepare the produce others have planted. This way I still have the 'taste of home".

During the growing season our meals consisted of fresh green beans, corn, sometimes on the cob, wilted lettuce (leaf lettuce from the garden with added green onions then hot bacon grease poured over it. It was then tossed and seasoned with salt, pepper and vinegar.) Cucumbers were often sliced with onions and put in a mixture of vinegar, water, salt and pepper. Sliced tomatoes were placed in a big bowl on the table. Sometimes mother would take the peeling off, other times not.

To this day I don't have a need to eat meat. It is not that I don't like it, I just didn't grow up eating it, so it feels normal to have a meal without it. At times there was fried chicken, but not every week. I don't even remember eating bacon. I just remember using the grease for cooking. I feel secure in the fact the bacon was given to the hard-working farmer who sat at the head of the table. Of course he had eaten and was out working before the rest of the house was up. Getting in the fields before the heat of the day was important.

After hours of work as the sun was setting low in the field, dad would come home to a hot meal. I don't remember him ever complaining about what was on the table. Many times at night it was the same as for dinner, other times it would be brown soup beans, potatoes fried in an iron skillet, and cornbread with the fresh green onions on the side. He drank coffee. We all had water. No iced tea, no canned pop, no Koolaid. Just water from the pump outside the kitchen door. It was cooler if pumped fresh. And I never felt deprived. It was just the way I thought life was.

Eggs were not the normal breakfast fare either. They were used for baking and put in other things we ate. If the chickens were laying well there might be an egg. We did at times have a fried egg on biscuit to take to school for lunch. A biscuit with egg, wrapped in a newspaper tied together with string. That was our noon meal at school. I chuckle to myself as I think how my grandchildren would recoil at this idea. Why, they would be laughed right out of the room, or so they think. Oh if only they could see how blessed I am for being one of the 'didn't haves'. Someday in the future they will learn.

I know it is 90 degrees outside. My inward clock says it is time to make a big pot of vegetable soup. On the farm we had no meat to put in the pot. We used bacon grease for flavoring and added homegrown cabbage, carrots, celery, potatoes, green beans, corn, peas, onions and tomatoes. I can close my eyes and almost smell the aroma of that soup. Cornbread was baked with bacon grease as well. Mother covered the bottom of the 'bread pan' with grease before pouring the batter into the pan. It made the bottom crunchy and the top had a crust as well. Mercy, I am getting hungry.

The bread was never cut, it was broken off. I like the corner because of the crust. I would use a knife to split it and then homemade butter was added. After having satisfied my craving for cornbread and butter, the rest of the portion I broke off was crumbled into the vegetable soup. This was done as well when we had brown bean soup. It just isn't right without cornbread.

The day is getting on. It has taken me most of the day to get the corn prepared for the freezer, cut a head of cabbage and do half the bag of beans. I am slower now, but there is a joy in me that I cannot describe as I take myself back to the farm by the way of preparing green beans.