Thinking of mama

Dear friends,

Do the weeks fly by or what!!!  Here it is Saturday again!!  When your normal daily routine is changed, well it just gets me all confused!!  Doesn't take much to do that anyway!!  Poppy has been on vacation all week because of turkey season, and no, he hasn't even seen one.  Back during deer season, says Poppy, "there were turkeys everywhere"!!    Sorry, but I kinda pull for the turkeys and deer.  I am always relieved when he comes home empty handed.  And besides that, we DO NOT need another turkey tail or deer head on the wall!!!  As mama used to say..."There's not enough room to lay a pin down"!!

I did get most of the garden planted this week.  Still need to plant some half-runner green beans and crook neck squash.  Oh, mama again...used to say "green beans are not fit to eat unless they're old timey half-runners".  And the squash, well mama couldn't stand "those old big yellow squash".  Only the "little crook neck", and they "need to be picked while they're real little".  Mama was always right too!!  Oh my goodness!!! To have one of mama's meals again.  After my sister, brother, and I got to be teenagers and moved to the country, (daddy decided he wanted us to know what it was like to farm), we worked in tobacco to make spending money.  All the farmers around grew tobacco.   My sister and I were hired to "hand" the tobacco, which paid .50 an hour.  My brother got to drive daddy's tractor and help in the field which paid much more!! He practically got rich!!! :)  We would ride home on the tractor around lunch time and mama would have dinner on the table...half-runner green beans seasoned with fat back, sliced tomatoes, fried okra, stewed squash, corn that had been cut off the cob, fried chicken, cornbread, and sweet (of course) iced tea.  Mama most always had a pie made...custard or chocolate with meringue.  I'll never forget how the house smelled when we three walked in, hungry and tired.

I wish you could hear mama talk about the "play houses" she and her sisters made.  They each picked their spot in the woods and swept the ground clean, then set up house.  It was such fun finding stuff to use.  An old piece of wood on a stump for a table, a board on two rocks for the bed, oh and big clumps of moss were always good in a playhouse.  As each sister got too old to play house any more they would auction off the things they had collected.  Aunt Martha had half a coconut shell she used as a wash pan and all the sisters wanted it.  Mama would laugh and say "Macy was  always the doctor".  Mama had seven sisters and two brothers...I love the girls names.....Ella Vastie, Berlie Sarah, Macy Ruth, Ruby Camillia, Martha Lucinda, Lillian Jewel, Eva Estelle, and Agathel Mozelle.  

My mother, Lillian Jewel, is second from left, front row.  The boys are Henry and Charlie. Sorry for the picture quality.  I only know how to download a picture and not how to improve quality. 

Goodness!!  If you've stayed this long, thank you.  I best get busy...I want to finish the garden and put some kind of mulch or straw between all the rows...

Love,
Henny Penny