Nice jars and bottles, Greg! Mom had canned food in all kinds of jars! The older ones are the glass domes with the wire bails...One year a bunch of the food spoiled and she burried the jars and food underneath the basement in the back of the cellar where she had her canned goods! The old house is torn down now with the basement area filled in! Maybe someday some brave, energetic soul might dig down deep and find the cellar part that was dug at the side part of the basement, as the basement and the back part of the house were built later! The cellar was under the back of the house and then the basement was added in front of it!
Oh, well, those were the good old days....dad plowed, mom, Cliff and I did the planting, debugging, picking the vegs and fruit, carried them in buckets across the creek and then up a steep hill that was full of rocks but supposed to be a road for the wagon to get to the barn near where our garden was, and then pealed, cut, cored, washed by all of us and canned in her pressure cooker or in pans on top of the old wooden cook stove! We had to cut and carry wood in for cooking and heating, also! Lots of work for us to have enough to eat during the winters and springs until the crops produced fresh fruit and vegies!
We also had canned meat....pork parts of all kinds and also hams and shoulders salted and preserved in brown sugar or whatever mom used and a chicken now and then which was killed, defeathered by scalding hot water, with the softer feathers kept for filling ticking for bed pillows and/or mattresses... and then the chicken was cut up and either boiled for chicken and dumplings or fried...depending on how old that chick was! We really didn't have feather beds but I slept on one and I sunk down deep into the softness and didn't like sleeping in it at all....it has been years and years ago....soooo the old memory isn't like it used to be!
We scaled and cleaned fish...degutting them and preparing them to eat! Turtles, frogs, squirrels but no rabbits...I guess mom and dad didn't go for them! I'm just as glad for I don't think I could ever eat one! But did eat ugh goat meat until our goats were gone and mom also milked the goats....with one dragging her down the hill above our old house and she had large black and blue bruises on her hips and legs.
Cliff and I also helped her milk the cows when they were fresh with milk. The calves took some and we took some! We churned butter and made buttermilk and cheese! The hens gave us eggs to use, so you see we didn't waste much on the farm in the 40's and 50's! Cliff and I both left and then Larry and Carolyn, the twins, born in 1946 took our place working on the farm...but neither had to work as hard as Cliff and I, because dad had modernized things for working the farm and built a new house on the area where an old, old barn stood...where the goats were kept! The old barn was gone before dad built the new home in the 60's and then sold the whole farm in 1972! Carolyn and Larry had graduated from high school and left home and dad was too ill with Emphyzema and Parkinson's Disease to take care of running the farm any more!
Now, these were the years of 1940's, 50's and 60;s and not way back in the 1800's like it sounds!
Just thought I would give you a little history on how we all lived back on the farm! All 72 acres of it!
Mom found old coins when she was around the old barn but couldn't find any now, for dad took care of that when digging the basement and building the new house and putting in a septic tank! She also looked for old bottles! Mom would have made a good archaeologist, as she loved hunting for arrow heads and Indian Artifacts, various rocks by color and shape and etc. She read all kinds of science and archaeology books, old western mags and treasure mags! Mom liked to read and learn about different things and read the Bible often and made quilts as a hobby! She was always busy...dad worked hard but he helped mom very little in the house....men those days were like that, but my brothers were quite different and helped their wives and even me whenever they could!
I believe I have the old coins, many jars and bottles she found after both her and dad passed away! Love ya' ll in Christ! Amen!
God Bless! Ma Betty (I'm still a long-winded writer!)
