How many of you know I grew up on a small farm? We lived on a rural street, an actual country block.
We lived on 3 and ½ acres of land with a maple forest behind us. Our neighbors actually made maple syrup back there while I was growing up. No Mrs Butterworth for us, we had the real thing. Papa would take me back to the woods during sugaring time and we sneak sips of sap from the cold galvanized buckets hanging from the trees.
We always had a garden with sugar snap peas in early spring winding their curly little tendrils up the twine ladders Papa and I would string up for them. It was always my job to wind the errant tendrils. I had little fingers. Then Kentucky wonder green beans, and always tomatoes. Cherry and slicing ones. Sometimes Roma’s. Hills of squash and zucchini. Corn. Sweet and field. Some for us and some for the animals. The first days of being barefoot in the spring. The dirt frigid on my bare toes. Then later the blazing heat of summer and the dried out dirt. Being careful to not stick my hands into a garden spider’s zig zaggy web. Being grossed out by smut on the corn. Then, the endless picking...of everything. Mama canned tomato sauce, and green beans, peas and corn got frozen. We’d usually get strawberries and blueberries from somewhere nearby and those got frozen. Peaches and applesauce got canned. Sometimes jellies. Maple syrup got canned as well to preserve it.
We had my aunt’s horse for awhile when I was little and some cows but what animals I always remember were the chickens, and sheep. Cold, cold mornings. Most of the ewe’s seemed to pick the coldest of the cold mornings to have their lambs. But the barn, in reality, a small building attached to the back of our big stand alone garage, would be warm and cozy. Smelling of sweet hay and a little of manure. Then once the lamb was born smelling of dampness, and afterbirth. Papa and Nugget, our Australian Shepherd mix, and I and sometimes Mama would hunker down in the hay with the lambing ewe and be ready with hot water and ready hands in case she had trouble or the lamb was breach.
The chicken coop had a smell of its own and always a little twinge of fear of the crazy roosters who liked to try to land on my head while I stole eggs from the hens in the mornings. Occasionally finding baby chicks under a hen instead of eggs!
Both the sheep and chickens were raised for food. So usually there was a butchering time. And sometimes in the winter someone would hit a deer down the road from us and since this was before cell phones, the driver would come to our house to call the state highway patrol. By the time they would make that call, Papa would have checked out the deer and the damage done to it. If salvageable he’d get on the line with the patrolman and ask if he could have the deer. Most of the time the answer was yes. Then the day would become a butchering day. The big table was set up in the garage and the deer was hung upside down from the boom on the back of the big tractor. Once bled out we’d skin and dress it out and Ma would can most of the venison into stew chunks and we’d get the most wonderful venison stew with garden peas and onions and potatoes on cold, cold winter evenings.
Papa built me a tree-house one year. It was my favorite place to be for many many many summers. I still miss it. I liked being up high. I also had a rope swing. And I’d go on “adventures” on my bike. Usually not much further then back to the back garden. But sometimes if I was feeling really brave back to the woods and home again. (Not very far at all.)
We always had kittens, cats and at least one dog. I LOVE animals. Probably because they were my constant companions. I relate to animals much better than humans.
