But that leads me to veggie farming in general. My Aunt Nettie and Uncle Everett had a truck gardening farm. Anyone know what that is in this day of HUGE conglomerate farms?
Anyway, I used to spend a week each summer on the farm, and maybe a week with Uncle Harry and Aunt Pearl on their orchard farm. I remember prune season with some pain. Yes, I ate as I picked. Not a good idea.
Back to N & E. I spent one whole summer on the farm one year. It was a working farm, and if you planned to spend more than a day, you weren't a guest any longer. I tried working outside, but got sick from the heat. So Aunt N said I could stay inside and keep house and cook. She had to get up early anyway, so she fixed breakfast and let me sleep in. But dinner (the noon meal) and supper (the evening meal) were my responsibility. Most of the meals were straight from the garden. My mouth is watering now at the memory of tomatoes, fresh picked, warm from the sun. Don't bother about washing, just wipe the dust off on your shirt, sprinkle a little salt, and oh! heavenly sweet and juicy!
Peas and pole beans, potatoes in abundance. Cucumbers, onions, lettuce, cabbage, and I don't remember what all else. Check out the produce section in any market, and they probably grew it. But no rhubarb. They also had a small orchard of apples and peaches that I remember. There may have been other fruit trees, but I don't remember at this point. On the acreage on the other side of the creek Uncle E grew melons. Such melons you never found in a store! Melons for home consumption were put in the creek for cooling. Now that creek was !cold! all year long, and when it came time to serve the melon it was sweet, crispy cold, and totally wonderful!
Once I went with Aunt N on her rounds to her produce customers. She loaded her pickup with a variety of produce picked early that morning, washed and packed for display. She travelled many miles to the boonies much further out than the farm. She was eagerly met by her customers who lived so far out in the country that they "went to town" once a month to stock up on staples such as sugar and flour. And maybe took in a movie before driving back home at night. They may have lived 50-60 miles away from town. In this day of daily commuting, that doesn't sound like much, but believe me, it was a big deal then. Some of the "backwoods" families had friends or relatives in town who would put them up for the night, and they'd get up before dawn to go back home the next day.
Oh, yes, I almost forgot. I churned butter from the milk from Uncle E's cows. And I baked bread twice a week. I absolutely cannot stand that stuff the stores call buttermilk. Buttermilk left over from churning butter--now that's buttermilk. I remember those huge cans set out by the side of the road for the dairyman to pick up. The cats all gathered in the barn for their twice-daily squirt of milk directly from the cow. No crowding to be first. They all lined up and waiting patiently because they knew they would get their squirt.
Also, the milk for home consumption had to be "separated." There was this piece of machinery on the back porch that was used for separating the cream from the rest of the milk. You poured the milk into the top receptacle, then turned the crank and somehow or other, cream came out of one spout and separated milk came out of the other spout. Then there was the cleaning up. Do NOT rinse the cheesecloth in hot water. Nonono! Cold water first, or you get, oh, I don't want to describe it.
My goodness, I almost forgot the chickens and turkeys. Well, that's a story for another day.
Thanks for the memories.