Old Farm Memories

   / Old Farm Memories #1  

scott_vt

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Oct 5, 2004
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east wells,vt
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1986 MF 1040, 1942 Farmall A, 1949 Farmall Super A
Good Evenin Guys,
Just the other day I was thinkin how good my Grandmas rhubarb and strawberries were in the mornin ! Ohhh about 50 years ago ! :eek:

The farmer down the street from me invited me down to get some rhubarb..... it didnt take but a few minutes to get down the road to his place to get some, and Kathleen got some strawberries :) , and before I knew what happened I was cooking up Grandmas recipe of rhubarb and strawberries and some sugar of course ! Its a great breakfeast and great way to start the day !

Of course there were the times when my Pop and I would go down the side of the mountain early in the mornin and catch some brookies and Grandma would fry them up :) !

And after breakfeast I would grab Grandpas shotgun, double barrel, empty of course ;) , put on his barn boots, and go out into the pasture for some serious huntin !!! ;) Wow, that 50 years went by quick ! I was 7 , hope the next 50 are as good !

Share some of your memories on this thread please !

Happy fourth ! :)
 
   / Old Farm Memories #2  
A good and a bad memory combined:
I remember about 50 years ago when we were kids helping my mama and daddy pick Japanese plums in April and Celeste figs in July and my mama filling a big ole pot with them and making some of the best home made preserves around. She would can them in some old glass top mason jars that they had had for years. Those preserves were much better than store-bought ones and I ate many peanut butter sandwiches with them. :)

The bad memory: My mother would give jars full to her closest friends. One year an acquaintance talked her out of a couple of bottles of them which my mother gladly gave her. A couple days later she was back begging for more saying they were just so good that they had gobbled them down. My mother was so proud that she must have given her about a dozen jars of them. A month or two later one of her friends told her that the lady was taking the jars and dumping them out and selling the antique mason jars at a flea market. :eek: My mother never made preserves again. :(

They say the second 50 years go by much quicker so I am looking forward to the third 50 years. ;)
 
   / Old Farm Memories #3  
On my mom's side, Grandma's "garden" was about 3/4 acre that she, and little helpers, worked by hand. Hoes, shovels, weeding, seeding / planting, picking. Not sure I've yet in my life I've tasted tomatoes or string beans as good. She also had a bed of rhubarb that provided great pie and preserves for many though I'm not a fan of rhubarb myself.

On my dad's side, the garden was smaller and the overall crop less remarkable but besides his family, his scout troops and fishin', his passion was his quince and his apple tree.

Funny how then the thoughts were all about the "things" and now the thoughts are all about the joy.

Thanks for starting up this thread. My grandparents have all been gone for a while now but some cousins just lost their last grandparent from the other side of their family and I've been thinking a lot about grandparents as a result.
 
   / Old Farm Memories #4  
The family Dairy Farm Mom grew up on and I spent 3 summers at is no more...

Too hard to make a living with 30 milk cows and everything that it entailed... My cousin owns the place now and drives a city bus... everything farm related he sold off along with some of the land... hundreds of years my family farming the same farm is no more... at least I had a chance to experience it...

Still remember us kids starting the old crank 1 cylinder diesel tractor Grandpa had in the Barn... I think I was around 10 at the time... The grown ups thought it was harmless since it hadn't run for some time... After that, we had strict instructions not to fool around with the equipment.
 
   / Old Farm Memories #5  
Fiftysome years ago...

The old red wooden frame horse drawn harvester that was then being pulled by a big Cat was bigger than the two newer self propelled Deeres working the same field. Rode with Uncle Charlie and was fascinated watching two hands sitting on stools binding burlap sacks with needle and twine. Besides the two burlap binders I recall it took at least two, maybe three or four other guys to run the huge machine not counting the Cat operator.

Me and all my cousins got our first taste of driving and tractoring on the old Gibson. I remembering blading the family orchard smooth for easier harvesting for my Aunt Lou. Not knowing any better, it was probably the worst possible ground treatment but they just said "What a fine job!".

Cousin David thowin' a batch of watermelons from the 1/2 acre "family" patch into the irrigation ditch on the way to work a 5AM and coming back, hot and dusty from the fields at lunch, just eating the heart and tossing the rest because that was the "good" part.

The huge tractor machine shop still had the overhead shaft run by an immense motor and the flat drive belts flapped as they operated their machines. Uncle Charlie kept a close watch on me there. No guards on the belts. A time of personal responsibility, you paid attention and stayed out of trouble. "Keep your hands in your pockets and stay by my side."

A few years later, my first beer "in public" at the "Plug & Jug", I was probably 11.

Early breakfast, hearty lunch, wholesome supper. Big family sit-down meals. Almost everything homemade or home grown.

My cousins doing their best to be patient with the city kid. Sometimes successfull...sometimes not.

Fun times, fond memories, good thread. Keep'm commin'.
 
   / Old Farm Memories #6  
Remember when feed sacks were 100 pounds... than 80 pounds... than 60 pounds... now 40 pounds... We are a bunch of whimps now days!

mark
 
   / Old Farm Memories #7  
We just used scoop shovels for transferring the feed from the granary to the wagon box to the chopper.:D :D :D
 
   / Old Farm Memories #8  
mmmm strawberry-rhubarb - my mom and aunt used to both make wicked-good strawberry-rhubarb pies back in the day.

- Jay
 
   / Old Farm Memories #9  
My Grandma and her second husband (Grandpa died when I was 4) had a huge apple/peach orchard. They had a roadside market next to their house which they would sell apples, peaches and honey. Us kids when the the peaches would start getting ripe and we were visiting. Would go out in the orchard and eat fresh peaches till almost sick. We would have to get under the garden hose and wash all the sticky juice off. Grandpa, step grandpa, would always tell us that he had just sprayed the peaches when they started to get ripe. He knew what we were doing. Ever since then, don't think I have ever ate a peach that tasted as good!!!!!!!!!!!
 
   / Old Farm Memories #10  
Don't know how many will continue to read after tellin that I am a "Yankee" or "#$%^@** Yankee", whichever you'd like to call me, but have very fond memories of my Father-in-Law and some of the things that happened between us before he passed. A little backgroung about me. Was born in Philadelphia, Pa and lived there for my first 13 years, then moved to Bethlehem, Pa until I graduated. Went in the service for 4 years, and finally landed in SC at the end of my service life (AF).
The most memorable of the stories is the peanut story. I started helping him about two years after I married his oldest daughter. We had some bad weather aand he told me to go up to one of the fields about ten miles up the road and check on the peanuts. He farmed about 800 acres, mostly rented. So, I took off and went and checked the field, and came back with the bad news. I told him that he didn't have any peanuts. He said he knew he did, he had checked them a week ago, and there were plenty. I told him that I had walked the rows and didn't see the first peanut. I guess he still grins in the ground when he thinks about me not knowing that they grew underground.
Again, I didn't know there was such a thing as dirt. I thought the whole world was made up of asphalt and concrete. Aand ther are lots more stories, but don't want to bore you.
 
 
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