Things That We Did on The Farm
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Each
time we moved to a new place, the first thing my mother would do
is start digging a storm cellar and an outhouse. She was deathly
afraid of tornadoes which made this activity the top thing on her
priority list. I can remember she would roust everyone out of a
deep sleep in the middle of the night to go to the cellar.
The
kitchen was a gathering place for the family. In the winter it
was the only room with heat. We did have a coal-fired potbelly
stove in the living room, but it was only lit at night. We
would take our bath in a number 2 bath tub in the kitchen.
Mother would heat water on the stove and pour
it into
the tub. Since we did not have much water, it was used
sparingly. More than one person would use the same water.
Additional hot water was added as the temperature dropped.
Needless to say this was not a daily occurrence. Usually we
would bath fortnightly or when we were going visiting. It is
not hard to understand why people in this time did not have the
sanitation standards that we do today. Frances said that one of
her teachers would threaten the students when the smell got
real bad. The teacher would single out the worst culprit and
deride them, which scared Frances into better sanitation. The
sponge bath was her solution to this stinky problem. One
wonders why we didn't die from living in these unsantitary
conditions. We had a washbasin with a bar of soap in the
kitchen to wash your face and hands. Mother’s lye soap was
always nearby for all sorts of cleaning tasks. When everyone
was clean the bath water would be poured on her garden. Nothing
was wasted in our house. They say that you use everything on a
pig except for the squeal. I feel that mother used it for
something. The tub was then hung on the outside of the house
by a nail. eat, which in due time makes a good source of fuel. When a cow took a crap the resulting effect was a paddy of about 6 to 8 inches in diameter. After setting in the West Texas sun for a period of time it would become solid and dry. A bit of judgment was needed when collecting this recycled hay, since recently deposited patties were mixed with the dryer one. Picking up the juicy patties was rather messy. Lizards in West Texas chose these cow chips as a housing development and got downright testy when you asked them to vacate their happy domicile. I was told that they were venomous, but that was probably something that they used to make me be cautious in the pasture; Texas does not have
venomous lizards. My task
was to
collect these cow paddies from the
pasture.
Mother would place these chips under
the
pot and start the heating the water.
I would
stay by the pot and tell her when
the water
was boiling; a task that I now realize
was
designed to keep me out of the way.
Her first
step was to cut slivers of her lye
soap into
the boiling water. Throwing our
clothes into
the boiling water, she would then
use a stick
like an old broomstick to poke and
stir the
clothes. After a lot of poking and
stirring
she would use the stick to transfer
the clothes
into a number 2 galvanized tub where
a “wash
board” was used to scrub the dirt
out of
the clothes. Some of our neighbors
had a
hand powered wringer to squeeze
the water
out of the clothes following the
rinse cycle.
Mother would take the clothes and
twist them
in her hands until most of the water
was
expelled. Following the rinse cycle
the clothes
were hung on the clothes line. She
would
adjust the height of the line with
an old
board with a vee notch cut in one
end. The
clothes line was placed in the notch
and
she would put the other end in the
ground.
When the wind direction changed
the board
would flip in the other direction.
This was
a rather ingenuous. The making of her soap would take place near slaughtering time. When the cows and pigs were butchered in the fall the hard fat was trimmed from the meat. While we did not have a lot of animals, the neighbors would give us their tallow or
“taller” as mother
would
say. Mother would also save all
the grease
from frying in a can to be use for
soap.
She would put this fat in the kettle
and
start the rendering process. The
tallow was
cooked until the solids floated
to the top.
The floating pieces were called
cracklings.
These cracklings were scooped out
and saved
to eat or make corn bread. I still
like cracklings
but, now realize that they can’t
be good
for you. The remaining liquid was
the soap
base. Mother initially had flat irons that she
would put on the stove until they were hot.
There would be two or three iron on the stove
heating. When one got cold she would place
it on the stove and detach the handle and
attach it to a hot iron. One of Daddy’s sisters
later sent us a kerosene iron. My guess is
that she was afraid of it and palmed it off
on us. The bulb on the back was filled with
kerosene and pumped up to give some pressure
to vaporize the fuel. A match was then used
to light the burner. It seemed to work and
saved a lot of time in heating the irons.
Wonder how many accidents occurred using
these irons? Chickens supplied the main stay
of our diet.
They were like walking grocery stores,
supplying
eggs and meat year around. Breakfast
was
eggs, biscuits, sorghum syrup, and
maybe
some pork if it was near slaughtering
time.
Mother would fry a lot of chicken,
make gravy
and add a few
vegetables when available.
Every meal was served with biscuits
or corn
bread and butter. When we could
not afford
flour, she would make corn bread.
She would
at time make her own yeast, but
it usually
needed to be stored in a refrigerator,
which
we did not have. She did use sourdough
yeast
at times. During WW II dry yeast
became available,
but that was about the time we moved
to Lubbock.
There was always corn in the crib
that was
usually used to feed the animals,
but could
be ground up and made into corn
bread. Most
everything we ate was grown on the
farm.
Pecan pie was always in abundance
at our
meals. There was always syrup around
the
house. As I recall it was bought
in a gallon
pail that could be used as a lunch
box; kept
the ants out of the food in the
field. Everybody
had chickens in those days even
in towns.
It was a good source of food at
a relatively
cheap cost. They would eat anything
and I
mean anything including parts of
the dearly
departed chickens. Mother would
throw the
guts and other parts on the ground
and they
would have a feast. Things like
that tends
to upset people today, but was accepted
without
question then. Now days, if you
want chicken
for dinner, your biggest problem
is whether
you go to Kentucky Fried or Popeyes.
Back
when I was a kid a lot of effort
went into
a simple chicken dinner. To get
this whole
process off the ground required
lining up
a hen and a rooster and building
them a pad
called a chicken coop. Coops were
fairly
simple, as chickens will live in
anything
from boxes to old car bodies. As
far as I
can remember, we always had hens,
but at
times did not have a rooster. A
rooster is
not needed except when you want
to raise
little chickens. You always knew
when mother
had obtained a rooster, because
they tend
to get up real early and refuse
to allow
mankind to remain asleep. Some farmer
would
buy little chickens, just hatched,
from the
feed store. As this cost money,
mother would
convince the rooster to get busy
and start
making chickens. Not sure how many
chicken
we had, but we seemed to always
be eating
chicken and I don’t remember the
yard not
being cluttered with chickens pecking
the
ground. Maneuvering the yard without
stepping
in something was a task. As some
hens will
not set on eggs, a selection process
took
place until one of the hens accepted
her
role as a brooder hen. Assuming
that snakes,
chicken hawks, rats, coyotes or
other disgruntled
hens didn’t screw up the process,
a baby
chicken will start to peck a hole
in the
egg in around 25 days. Now you had
to wait
about a month or so, before they
gained enough
weight to eat. Now came the day
of doom for
one of the unsuspecting chicken.
Mother had
trained them to flock around for
food. They
would come a clucking to their demise.
After
a selection process that I never
understood
a
young chicken
was grabbed around the neck and swung in a circular motion
until the neck was broken. Some people would simply tie a cord
around their feet and hang them on the clothes line and remove
the head with a sharp knife. Others would just cut the head off
and let it flop. Whatever process used resulted in a lot of
flapping of their wing, which did not feel good when they hit
you in the face. While the chicken was flapping around on the
ground in its final death throes the water in the wash pot was
checked for the right temperature. Getting the wash pot ready
involved the same process of collecting cow chips as mentioned
in making soap and washing clothes. Insuring that the chicken
had gone to Valhalla or where ever brave chicken go, she picked
it up by the feet and dunked it into the hot water to loosen
the feathers. This is a very vague process, since the chicken
had to be removed at the correct moment or you had a mess on
your hands. Never fully understood how long was long. Later in
life I had a job plucking chickens, but like when in Marines
you were only told what you needed to accomplish your job. I
doubt that an explanation would have been received with much
enthusiasm any way. Now she would go over and kick the fire
away from the wash pot and pass the chicken through the fire to
remove the pin feathers. Now came the really messy part. The
“innerds” as she called
gravity
because it was free. Mother would store the cream in the
coolest place she could find, waiting until she had enough to
make butter. The thick sour mixture was strained off and put
into a wooden churn. This piece of wood was among my worst
enemies because I had to pump the handle up and down until it
became butter. Mother would look in the churn form time to time
and then tell me to keep pumping. This process would take
anywhere from 30 minutes to forever. I must admit that I liked
butter on my biscuits and the buttermilk was great otherwise I
might have run away from home around butter making time. After
she worked the buttermilk out of the butter it was put into a
butter mold. What about the vegetables. Mother
always
had a garden, even after we moved
to town.
She grew potatoes, tomatoes, bean,
corn,
and squash. During the growing season
there
was more food than could be eaten,
so she
broke out her pressure cooker and
started
canning. That metal monster scared
the crap
out of me. Several stories circulated
around
about them exploding with various
degrees
of bodily damage. A lot of the farmers
would
grow food and offer her a percentage
to can
it for them. These projects were
an all hands
evolution. Bean would be scattered
over a
tarp on the ground. Everyone would
bring
chairs and bowls and sit down and
start snapping
or shelling the beans or shucking
the corn.
I remember a lot of storied being
told while
people would work. It is a sad situation
that I can’t remember these stories,
but
the younger generation never listens
to their
elders. Well that pretty much explains
how our simple
meals of chicken, biscuits and a few vegetables
got on the table. When someone complains
about having to cook dinner, they should
think about how it was done in the "good
old days". Now that a filling meal had been consumed,
everyone could relax and watch television.
Not hardly. Someone had to clean the table
and put all the scraps in a bucket to take
outside for the animals. Water had to be
heated on the stove to wash the dishes. After
washing the dishes they had to be wiper and
put in the cupboard. Now everyone could relax.
Yeah. The lamps had to be cleaned of soot
from the prior day. Don’t forget that a trip
into the night was necessary to get kerosene
to fill the lamps and the stove. Yes, out
to the barn to insure that the animals had
food and were ok. Now you could relax and
work on mending clothes, harness or something
else requiring repairs. We didn’t get a radio
until 1943 so there wasn’t much you could
do but work until it was time to go to bed.
Generally, bed time was around 8 pm. Everybody
was up the next day by around 5 am to meet
another day of leisure on a farm. The life
of a farmer in these days was rather harsh,
of course that does not explain anything.
My opinion is that the only way that it could
be understood was to have lived it. The life
of a woman on the farm was almost like slavery
if you applied todays standards to it. That
is not to say that the life of the man was
much better. He would work in the field from
before the sun came up until late into the
night. This was work that would actually
make your back ache for relief. Why did they
do it? There was no options. You either did
this or you starved to death. I am not a
liberal, but there is a great need for compassion
for the people that break their back just
to feed their family, yet fall short. I can
not relate to the feeling that must accompany
the utter humililation of knowing that you
have failed your family. I thank God that
I never had to experience the crushing feeling
of not being able to give your family the
basic necessities. I often wonder what my
father thought about how he provided for
his family. I am nothing but completely estatic
that I could provide for my family in a manner
much better that my parents did for us. I
believe that things like the Lafayette Community
Health Center is an example of something
that all people should do to give back to
those that are less fortunate. For the Grace
of God There Go I. |
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Chapter 1 My Way of Thinking |
We
had a kerosene cook stove in the kitchen when we live on
“Jackson’s Place” that looked a lot like this picture. Phillips
66 would deliver kerosene and pump it into a 55 gallon drum that
lay on its side with a tap in the bottom. Dad had dug a hole in
the ground so that a container could be placed under the tap.
There was a glass jug on the stove that would hold about a gallon
of kerosene. One of my tasks was to fill the jug. This was tough
in the winter. The jug had to be turned upside down in its
container, a task which I was not dexterous enough to accomplish.
Mother would always handle this process. The jug was then pumped
up to insure enough pressure to carry the fuel to the burners.
them
were removed. The head, guts and bile were removed and fed to
other chicken or the hogs. Washing off all the extraneous
material that had attached itself to the body of the dearly
departed chicken brought you to the final process of preparing
the chicken for cooking. Legs, thighs, breasts were cut and
placed into a bowl for transportation to the kitchen. Kerosene
in the stove was topped off and the lard that was processed
during the hog killing time was placed into a large cast iron
skillet. While waiting on the lard to heat, the chicken was
rolled in flour. With a lot of sputtering and splattering the
chicken was placed into the hot lard. At the same time biscuits
were being cooked along with beans or other vegetables. All of
these activities had to all come together at the same time. 
