Canning Ane Other Things In life

When i was growing up my parents and grandparents would plant large gardens . They had beans ,okra ,corn , sugar cane , water melons yellow moon and stars and red ones and they grew big back then , cucumbers , big heads of cabbage . squash yellow and saucer size ones were the best tasting .
I remember when my grandma would can over 300 jars of green beans for the winter . Other things she and mom canned were cabbage to work off in a crock , tomato juice , okra , Yellow and white sweet corn . Pickles like ,sweet and sour , dill , bread and butter , and sour. In the winter we would kill a hog . Grandma and mom would rub seasoning and salt on the shoulders to hang in the smoke house and cure . Grandma would grind sausage and roll into balls and cook then pack in jars . Turn up side down and let the grease would seal the jar . Grandpa would take the sugar cane to an old farmer . They had a press set up and a mule would pull the press and mash the juice out to make molasses . In the winter time it was nice to dip a biscuit in that sweet treat .
They would plant acre's of cotton , wheat and oats for the plow horse and cow . Grandpa had a horse driven machine that i would ride and it would cut the dried wheat corn and oats off by lowering a handle that let the blade down . Then i would ride a hay rake . We would rake the hay in row's and when done use a pitchfork and load hay on a home made trailer that the mule pulled . Then get to the barn and have to throw it up into the loft of barn .
Grandpa had an old T model ford that he would take off back wheel and put a rim on and belt that would pull a saw to cut slabs for fire wood . I liked to off bear that saw but didn't like handing the long slabs too him to cut . Slabs were the part of logs that were cut off at a sawmill to make boards . Sure wish i could go back in them old days . Too me life back then was real and you would savor the rewards for the work we did .

Written By Wayne