Old Farm Memories

[scott_vt]

Good Evenin Guys,
Just the other day I was thinkin how good my Grandmas rhubarb and strawberries were in the mornin ! Ohhh about 50 years ago !

The farmer down the street from me invited me down to get some rhubarb..... it didnt take but a few minutes to get down the road to his place to get some, and Kathleen got some strawberries , and before I knew what happened I was cooking up Grandmas recipe of rhubarb and strawberries and some sugar of course ! Its a great breakfeast and great way to start the day !

Of course there were the times when my Pop and I would go down the side of the mountain early in the mornin and catch some brookies and Grandma would fry them up !

And after breakfeast I would grab Grandpas shotgun, double barrel, empty of course , put on his barn boots, and go out into the pasture for some serious huntin !!! Wow, that 50 years went by quick ! I was 7 , hope the next 50 are as good !

Share some of your memories on this thread please !

Happy fourth !

 

[tallyho8]

A good and a bad memory combined:
I remember about 50 years ago when we were kids helping my mama and daddy pick Japanese plums in April and Celeste figs in July and my mama filling a big ole pot with them and making some of the best home made preserves around. She would can them in some old glass top mason jars that they had had for years. Those preserves were much better than store-bought ones and I ate many peanut butter sandwiches with them.

The bad memory: My mother would give jars full to her closest friends. One year an acquaintance talked her out of a couple of bottles of them which my mother gladly gave her. A couple days later she was back begging for more saying they were just so good that they had gobbled them down. My mother was so proud that she must have given her about a dozen jars of them. A month or two later one of her friends told her that the lady was taking the jars and dumping them out and selling the antique mason jars at a flea market. My mother never made preserves again.

They say the second 50 years go by much quicker so I am looking forward to the third 50 years.

 

[slewisma]

On my mom's side, Grandma's "garden" was about 3/4 acre that she, and little helpers, worked by hand. Hoes, shovels, weeding, seeding / planting, picking. Not sure I've yet in my life I've tasted tomatoes or string beans as good. She also had a bed of rhubarb that provided great pie and preserves for many though I'm not a fan of rhubarb myself.

On my dad's side, the garden was smaller and the overall crop less remarkable but besides his family, his scout troops and fishin', his passion was his quince and his apple tree.

Funny how then the thoughts were all about the "things" and now the thoughts are all about the joy.

Thanks for starting up this thread. My grandparents have all been gone for a while now but some cousins just lost their last grandparent from the other side of their family and I've been thinking a lot about grandparents as a result.

 

[ultrarunner]

The family Dairy Farm Mom grew up on and I spent 3 summers at is no more...

Too hard to make a living with 30 milk cows and everything that it entailed... My cousin owns the place now and drives a city bus... everything farm related he sold off along with some of the land... hundreds of years my family farming the same farm is no more... at least I had a chance to experience it...

Still remember us kids starting the old crank 1 cylinder diesel tractor Grandpa had in the Barn... I think I was around 10 at the time... The grown ups thought it was harmless since it hadn't run for some time... After that, we had strict instructions not to fool around with the equipment.

 

[RedDirt]

Fiftysome years ago...

The old red wooden frame horse drawn harvester that was then being pulled by a big Cat was bigger than the two newer self propelled Deeres working the same field. Rode with Uncle Charlie and was fascinated watching two hands sitting on stools binding burlap sacks with needle and twine. Besides the two burlap binders I recall it took at least two, maybe three or four other guys to run the huge machine not counting the Cat operator.

Me and all my cousins got our first taste of driving and tractoring on the old Gibson. I remembering blading the family orchard smooth for easier harvesting for my Aunt Lou. Not knowing any better, it was probably the worst possible ground treatment but they just said "What a fine job!".

Cousin David thowin' a batch of watermelons from the 1/2 acre "family" patch into the irrigation ditch on the way to work a 5AM and coming back, hot and dusty from the fields at lunch, just eating the heart and tossing the rest because that was the "good" part.

The huge tractor machine shop still had the overhead shaft run by an immense motor and the flat drive belts flapped as they operated their machines. Uncle Charlie kept a close watch on me there. No guards on the belts. A time of personal responsibility, you paid attention and stayed out of trouble. "Keep your hands in your pockets and stay by my side."

A few years later, my first beer "in public" at the "Plug & Jug", I was probably 11.

Early breakfast, hearty lunch, wholesome supper. Big family sit-down meals. Almost everything homemade or home grown.

My cousins doing their best to be patient with the city kid. Sometimes successfull...sometimes not.

Fun times, fond memories, good thread. Keep'm commin'.

 

[mjarrels]

Remember when feed sacks were 100 pounds... than 80 pounds... than 60 pounds... now 40 pounds... We are a bunch of whimps now days!

mark

 

[Egon]

We just used scoop shovels for transferring the feed from the granary to the wagon box to the chopper.

 

[JRobyn]

mmmm strawberry-rhubarb - my mom and aunt used to both make wicked-good strawberry-rhubarb pies back in the day.

- Jay

 

[waynokakid]

My Grandma and her second husband (Grandpa died when I was 4) had a huge apple/peach orchard. They had a roadside market next to their house which they would sell apples, peaches and honey. Us kids when the the peaches would start getting ripe and we were visiting. Would go out in the orchard and eat fresh peaches till almost sick. We would have to get under the garden hose and wash all the sticky juice off. Grandpa, step grandpa, would always tell us that he had just sprayed the peaches when they started to get ripe. He knew what we were doing. Ever since then, don't think I have ever ate a peach that tasted as good!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[motepoc]

Don't know how many will continue to read after tellin that I am a "Yankee" or "#$%^@** Yankee", whichever you'd like to call me, but have very fond memories of my Father-in-Law and some of the things that happened between us before he passed. A little backgroung about me. Was born in Philadelphia, Pa and lived there for my first 13 years, then moved to Bethlehem, Pa until I graduated. Went in the service for 4 years, and finally landed in SC at the end of my service life (AF).
The most memorable of the stories is the peanut story. I started helping him about two years after I married his oldest daughter. We had some bad weather aand he told me to go up to one of the fields about ten miles up the road and check on the peanuts. He farmed about 800 acres, mostly rented. So, I took off and went and checked the field, and came back with the bad news. I told him that he didn't have any peanuts. He said he knew he did, he had checked them a week ago, and there were plenty. I told him that I had walked the rows and didn't see the first peanut. I guess he still grins in the ground when he thinks about me not knowing that they grew underground.
Again, I didn't know there was such a thing as dirt. I thought the whole world was made up of asphalt and concrete. Aand ther are lots more stories, but don't want to bore you.

 

[RonL]

When I was a youngster my grandparents had a sizeable chunk of land in the city. My grandfather had two chicken coops. He sold eggs to all the neighbors. He had a sizeable garden also and always had fresh vegetables in the summertime. He had apple trees and a number of currant and gooseberry bushes. My grandmother made preserves.
That property is all new houses now.

RonL

 

[Lasgambler]

Fiftysomething years ago growing up "down south". (Southern Mississippi) We had 80 acres on a river with nice white "sand bars" and a large "dead lake" on the property that had great fishing. Sundays after church we would load in the two wheel horse drawn cart with water melons and head for the river to swim.

I mowed the yards with a Farmall cub with a belly mower. (red) Daddy had a Farmall Super A with a sickle mower, plows, disc, and a old square baler. Those old tractors are probaly still running somewhere.

We had cows, horses, chickens, dogs and cats. Had a Pear orchard that mother made Great Preserves from.

Large gardens consisting of mostly corn, okra, blackeyed peas and watermelons. I can remember selling melons out of the back of the truck on the side of the road for "a quarter a round". Great Memories! Times have Changed. I miss the simpler life, No cell, No Internet, No Pay TV etc. GAS 29 CENTS A GALLON.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Putting in loose hay, using a triprake, gathering with a buckrake and having to pitch it in the barn with pitchforks.
hoeing acres of strawberries, which we would pick and deliver to customers. wasn't no self pick operations then around where I lived.
And then there was the acre or more of garden. We canned everything. I love home canned beef, not too many do that anymore. Oh, and when someone gave us something in a mason jar, we always made sure to return the jars to the person.
Taking pumpkins to town and selling them to the town folks.
Picking field corn by HAND, we didn't have a combine or even a tractor corn picker.
Learning to drive a tractor before age 10, and a truck by age 12. All standards of course.
Running trap lines in the winter, and hunting. Still don't know how I missed that fox with a shotgun from 3 ft away
And also the Rhubarb. A homemade Rhubarb pie is about as good as it gets.
And then there is the cabin we built as kids back in the woods. Almost every night in the summer we would ride our bikes back and sleep in our cabin. We built a fence around it to keep the cows out, would keep it mowed, and we would have family picnics there.

 

[Timber]

I use to love to be with my Dad when he put 100 pound burlap feed bags into 3 wooden storage bins in the feed room and then poor in molasses and mix it with the feed scoop. I can remember the smell as I post this thread

 

[rox]

I use to love to be with my Dad when he put 100 pound burlap feed bags into 3 wooden storage bins in the feed room and then poor in molasses and mix it with the feed scoop. I can remember the smell as I post this thread

I enjoyed reading every post, thanks to all. But this one caught my eye. Why would you pour molasses in wiht the animal feed?

 

[Timber]

I know the cows loved it but it had to do with nutrition

 

[billbill1]

My Grandfather lived one mile out of the town that I grew up in. He lost his wife and had 3 children 13, 8, and 4 that he raised the best he could-alone. He had electricity but no running water my entire life. The farm had 3 windmills to pump the water and they all functioned as they were designed. Gramps in later years added an electric pump to the windmill closest to the house. He ran probably 30 head of cows and worked them by himself (with the help of the grandsons). He watched very little TV but wouldn't miss Bonanza or Wagontrain. He moved into town in 1972, without any animals to care for, he didn't have much to live for. He lived a couple of miserable years after he moved to town. He was truly a country man.

 

[Timber]

animals give you something that you can't get from people, They have pure soul uncorrupted by the life of men. You can only know this by spending your life with them. It is a great loss for for the people in the world the recognize and understand the pureness of heart that you can only find in our 4 legged friends

 

[rox]

animals give you something that you can't get from people, They have pure soul uncorrupted by the life of men. You can only know this by spending your life with them. It is a great loss for for the people in the world the recognize and understand the pureness of heart that you can only find in our 4 legged friends

I always admire people who look afer animals. It is day in and day out like a baby who never grows up. I jsut don't hae the dedicaion to have animals, we ahve 1 cat that came with the house and that is all. we really don't even liek the cat that much but treat him very nice none the less. You talk about the purness of heart in the animals I see the purness of heart int he umans who love and care for them You are better than me for sure.

 

[JRobyn]

Weird how my FIL is right in the middle of several of these! Like Buckeye, he built his little cabin in the woods beside the pasture, then filled the pasture up with donkeys and goats to tend, and now the inverse of BillBill's g'pa, he's moved out of the town and into the cabin full-time, and taking Timber's philosophy to the extreme, his life now revolves totally around tending them all (and his dogs)! But in his mid-70s, he's more content and in much better condition than most of his peers.

- Jay