Last weeks news -Things are about the same on Little Creek and I have very little news, but “no news is good news” so I’ve heard.
Anyway, I’ll write as things progress and maybe someone will call or come by in addition to my family. They seem to comprise my news.
Karen came Friday and prepared lunch for both of us. Burr visited Friday evening and used the internet. He was searching for a plow to use with his little Kubota tractor. As high as food is being priced, I guess, many young people are beginning to learn the enjoyment of raising their own food.
My grandparents and parents raised almost everything they ate by canning and preserving their produce. They raised hogs for meat and shortning, feeding them left over scraps, peelings, etc. to enhance and economize on feed and we had eggs and chickens to eat as well. The eggs also were traded at the store for flour, salt, sugar, etc.
Our hogs were not butchered until they reached at leat 500 lbs. and they were fattended on corn raised and in the corn crib. Every bit of those hogs was used and butchering day was eagerly anticipated, for neighbors,helped one another more in those days, so we had company and a good dinner of ribs, tenderlion, potatoes, canned vegetables and gravy. I remember we always had home canned applesauce and to this day, I want applesauce when I have a meal of pork, but somehow it doesn’t taste the same for the pork has lost much of the flavor and the applesauce is too smooth. I think the homegrown and processed food is just better than the additive and sodium enriched food we buy.
You see we lived well when we weren’t as “privileged” although it required hard work and perserverance for the livelihood of the family depended on what was produced and preserved during the summer.
That was our menu and in addition we milked cows for milk and butter and always had a cellar full of canned meat, vegetables, berries and fruit and a bin full of big old nice cobbler potatoes.
What else would you need. My sisters and I were privileged to have had wonderful, loving parents and to have never known hunger nor much pain. We all loved and respected one another and we certainly appreciated all we had. We didn’t realize fully then how very much we were blessed. Now in my old age I want those left in my family to know how I like to relive our childhood in memory and to know how much I love you all and wish we could live it all over again.
I guess I got side tracked and waked nostalgic which I do in private often, but don’t often share my nostalgia in writing. My pen just took over and wrote my memory as I relived it.
Those of you old enough will remember blackberry picking time when we donned overalls and boots and headed off to the berry patch with two large buckets to be filled. We headed out at dawn to beat the heat and to be sure someone else didn’t find our special place. When we got home with buckets brimming, we headed to the creek to cool off and to wash off chiggers and ticks. Then came time to clean and wash the berries and to can them. Mom used half gallon jars which made just the right size cobblers. I always loved, as did Daddy, a fresh berry and cornbread shortcake with sugar and rich cream. It was good.
I could go on and on about my youth and those there back then, but I expect you have already become bored for you have to have lived it to like hearing about it.
There’s not many of my generation left to appreciate times back then in memory and very few who still practice ways of life I knew.
This has been a good Sabbath with only a few out this week from services. Julie and family were in our prayer list because of illness in the family. I especially prayed for little Julia who had to be taken to the emergency room. Dyanna was still recuperating from gall bladder surgery.
Brian led services and brought a message of how awesome and clear the Bible is and how the Old Testament foretells of things that are born out in the New Testament. He had studied and written the verses of each to prove the point and there are many parallel verses.
Danny led us through a very good lesson on the gifts and more.
Song service was spirited and melodious. Burr sang a song he had written and brother Burl always has a good testimony. Burl is a good friend and a asset to our church. We should have another dinner at church so as to enjoy his cooking. He had the best baked sweet potatoes I ever ate one of our dinners. I think we plan on such an event at Easter.
Our church congregation is praying for a revival and waiting on God’s timing. He knows what is best for us. We are blessed with Christians grounded in the truths of the Bible blessed with those willing to step out to keep the church family strong.
My family came for dinner after church, all but Kim.
Burr visited Rusty one afternoon last week and with me a couple of days.
Karen came by several times to help with things. She burned all my trash and took my unburnbables to be picked up by the trash hauler.
I don’t believe I could survive without Vonda and my kids.
Ruth came by after a week of being sick and brought me a present of bamboo wind chimes topped with a coconut shell. Windchimes are one of the things I love and the one Barb gave me had finally worn out.
Aaron was in and out during the weekend. He gets to attend church every other week with us.
Pat and Frank Meador spent Thursday with Jim and Jean Frye. They had lunch and then watched the movie “Winter’s Bone.”
Burl visited awhile one day and brought then a dressed rabbit which Jean says they enjoyed to the fullest. Kevin always comes Sunday morning before church for coffee with his Aunt Jean and Uncle Jim.
Sunday guests there were Benji, Cori, Sydney and Danny and Jamie Dry.
