Grampa and Gramma were organic gardeners. They used nature to fertilize, control weeds and pests, and to "feed" the earth of their gardens. They also believed that wild animals had benefits on a farm as well.
Friday, April 3, 2009
A Snake's Worth
Posted by Mickeylayne at 5:55 PM 0 comments
Labels: black, garter, natural gardening, pennsylvania, rattlesnake, snake
Monday, March 2, 2009
Mountain Meals---Spring Breaks
We had two big gardens behind the house where I grew up, but the gardens weren't the only source of our meals. The mountain provided lots of things to eat, and Gramma knew how to find many of them.
Posted by Mickeylayne at 5:47 PM 0 comments
Labels: Braken Fern, Breaks, eat, edible, ferns, foraging, mountain, woods
Sunday, March 1, 2009
A Time for Every Purpose...Wash Day
The bathroom in our big, double-block farmhouse was long and paralleled one entire wall of the kitchen. Bathtub, sink and toilet were at one end, and a Maytag wringer washer and rinse tub dominated the other end.
On Monday mornings Gramma was up hours before us. She'd already have filled the rinse tub with warm water and Downey fabric Softener, and the washer tub with hot water and Tide. Sometimes the low drone of the washer motor brought us out of our sleep. Nevertheless, by the time we were to get up for school, she'd already be wringing out the second load of laundry. When we rolled out of bed about 7 A.M., we stripped our beds and threw our dirty clothes, sheets and pillowcases down the stairs. At the foot of the stairs, she gathered everything into an enormous, two-handled wicker basket and off it went through the house to be sorted. By the time we were boarding the bus, she was in the back yard hanging up the 3rd load of wash, and by 10 AM, 5 or 6 loads of laundry flapped merrily on three or four lines out back. These weren't short lines tied, umbrella-like, to a pole. These lines stretched the breadth of the back yard. She'd hang the wash then raise the lines with 6-8 foot tree limbs with a fork at the tip.
Posted by Mickeylayne at 6:43 PM 0 comments
Labels: clean linen, crisp sheets, Downey, line dry, routines, schedules, Tide, Wash Day, wringer washer
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Bits and Pieces---the Winter Quilts
At first, the quilt was only a few feet wide, wrapped securely around the wood lengths. But as Gramma quilted, the wood peices were adjusted further and further apart. Soon there was a wide expanse between the lengths and it formed a huge (to a little girl) cloth table. My sister and I, with our Barbies and their clothes and their dollhouses, would scurry under that enormous "roof" and set up house with all our playthings. A big braided rug covered the expanse of floor between our beds, and while Gramma sat quietly quilting and humming, my sister and I acted out chapter after chapter of our Barbie's lives. Ocassionally, when the sun shone into the bedroom, it fell on the quilt and the multicolored patches shone through the muslin lining as muted shades of candy colors.
By the time Winter hit us with the full force of it's fury, we were snuggling under even one more new quilt made with old memories. Gramma's quilts were finer than the most priceless tapestries in any great castle. After all, those quilts were made of pieces of us.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Bears, Pigs, and Roses...oh my!
Posted by Mickeylayne at 7:04 PM 0 comments
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Bowman's Creek
Posted by Mickeylayne at 12:24 PM 0 comments
Friday, February 6, 2009
The Reservoir
Our farmhouse got it's water from a reservoir, a big hole excavated on the side of the mountain, not too far up behind our house. A spring fed into it from further up the mountain, filling it to within a few feet of the top, and the water fed through pipes down the hill to the house.
The hole was covered with a large sheet of tin and marked so that hunters wouldn't step onto the thin metal and go through, into the numbing, cold spring water.
Each Fall, Grampa would go up the side of the mountain, to check the reservoir. I dearly loved to go with him, as the reservoir was enchanting to me. The walk was fun, through the crunching brown leaves, holding my grampa's hand. We picked wintergreen berries from their little stems near the ground and popped them into our mouths. Grampa brought a basket, and occassionally we'd find a clump of new brown mushrooms. He'd cut them off leaving the roots in the ground then lower them gently into the basket. Later, Gramma would fix them for supper. But knowing what might be at the reservoir was what inspired my little legs to grapple with the climb through the woods.
Fall's abundance of leaves usually covered the metal over the reservoir. We'd sweep the leaves off with an old broom and Grampa would slide the cover off. I kept my eyes on the opening as the metal scraped across rocks and was thrown off to one side. Occasionally, some critter would be near the edge of the pool, lying just under the cover, unaware that his cool, dark hiding place would soon be revealed. Many times I would be priveleged to see animals, snakes and lizards that I ordinarily never saw. They would quickly scoot into the water or tunnel under a drift of leaves and rocks---gone for the time being.
I sat on the edge of the deep, dark reservoir as my grampa used a big net to pull a thin layer of leaves off the top of the water. Somehow, they'd managed to filter down and under the sheet cover.
The water in the reservoir was deep and still. The deeper it went down, the darker it became, but it was crystal clear to the bottom. I remember looking into the depths and being amazed that I saw no fish in such a perfect place for fish.
But there were other things I loved in this place. Moss---the greenest moss I ever saw---grew just inside the upper edge of the hole. Against that moss, bright as jewels on emerald velvet, lay one of my favorite creatures: a red spotted newt. Small and sleepy-eyed, it crouched in a swirled ball within the moss. As the metal moved off and the sun hit it's little orange body, it slowly uncurled and began moving off into the leaves. I'd seen dozens of these newts in my young life, but it was always a fresh delight to pick up the delicate little thing, examine it very, very close to my face, and then put it back into it's place.
Once all the living things had fled from the water, I lost interest and began exploring the stone row that ran down and away from the reservoir. Old stone rows threaded their way here and there all over the mountain. Natural field stone had been piled into rows and used for fences by long-ago farmers on this mountain. Broken down now by weathering and time, their wandering lines were still visible in many places. I loved to sit on the rocks, quietly and slowly lifting each one to see what crept beneath. Many times, another orange newt. Sometimes a large brown lizard. Most of the time simply roly-polys. But the anticipation of what could be under the next rock, always kept me busy until Grampa whistled and it was time to pick up the mushroom basket and head on down the mountain. By the time we'd reached the house, ruddy cheeked and out of breath from laughing and kicking through leaves, we had a basketful of goodies for Gramma. Brown mushrooms, a perfectly formed abandoned bird nest the wind had whipped out of a tree, a great handful of wintergreen leaves, some buckberries, and a few twigs of Sasafrass. We were always happy to trade it for big bowls of hot soup she always seemed to have ready when we appeared from the woods.
Posted by Mickeylayne at 5:46 PM 0 comments