Tagging Calves

It's been a busy summer but things are beginning to slow down a bit, so we can catch up on a few of the chores that got put off in the rush.  The mama cows have been doing their job with only a little help from the men and we have a fine crop of fall calves running around in the fields.  To make keeping up with the records on these babies easier,  each calf is usually tagged with an ear-tag that corresponds to its mama's ear-tag.  Since we raise Angus cattle and they are all black, it's a little hard to tell one calf from another unless you do something.   In the rush of late summer hay and tobacco cutting we are woefully behind in tagging.

Hubby and son decided that it was time to sort this mess out before it got worse. 

When the babies are newborn, it's not a real problem.  The little fellows follow close to their mama and it's easy to see who belongs to who.  It's also easy to grab the little ones and quickly put a big yellow tag in their ear.

However........

Hubby and son stood at the fence looking over the fine crop of calves.  "Ummm.  Some of them have a little growth on them."  muttered son.  "Not a problem.  You can handle it." reassured Hubby.  "Have you got the tagger?", queried son.  "It's in the ranger, ready to go.  Let's get started." affirmed Hubby. 

They started for the field.  The plan was for Hubby to drive the ranger until they identified a baby needing a tag.  Hubby would then drive the ranger next to the calf, son would jump out and grab the baby, holding it until Hubby could get out and tag the calf.  Easy enough when the calf is a week or two old.  Unfortunately, some of these "babies" now weighed close to 200 pounds--son weighs about 180 pounds.  Let the games begin!

Hubby drove off and had soon spotted a calf.  He eased up beside the calf, who is now on high alert, and yells "grab him son!"  Calf and son both leap at the same time.  Son grabs frantically and feels his hands slide down the smooth back of the fleeing calf.  Landing on his hands and knees he straightens up and brushes futilely at the grass stains on his jeans.  "You've got to move quicker next time." encourages Hubby.  "Uh huh" mutters son.

Soon they are approaching another calf--another near miss.  "Son, you need to go for the head." instructs Hubby.  "Well, Dad, that's the part that's leaving first." retorts son.

The next try goes better with son getting a better grip.  However, they are pretty evenly matched and it becomes a bit of a struggle.  Calf is determined to leave and Son is try to flip him over so he can hold him on the ground.  Hubby jumps into the fray and grabs for an ear to tag it.  About that time the calf gives another lunge and throws Son.  Hubby then loses the grip on the tagger and calf and tag part company.  Son looks up and shakes his head. "At least the tagger came loose or we'd be chasing the calf down to get the tagger back."

The tagging continues with lots of mutters and oaths with Hubby and Son slowly getting the job done.  As the afternoon continues, tempers get a little short.  Finally, they approach a late calf that is still little enough to grab easily.  Son corners the little fellow and reaches out to grab him.  The calf, sensing that he's trapped wheels quickly and makes a dash for freedom.  Son grabs him across the chest and slips his knee behind him to keep him still.  Bucking and squirming the little calf wiggles lose and heads between Son's legs.  Trying to keep from letting him go, Son squeezes his legs together and effectively makes a head catch, just like a cattle chute.  "Tag him Dad!" Son yells.  Hubby jumps in and swiftly tags the bellowing baby. 

Hubby steps back, takes one look at his son and starts to laugh.  The calf had evidently been in a fresh pile of manure and in the excitement had probably added a little of his own.  In his dash for freedom through son's legs, he had effectively squeegeed himself clean on son's jeans.  Son took a tentative step and realized that he was saturated to the skin.  "Son," murmurs Hubby, "I think maybe we've done enough for tonight.  Why don't you head to the house."

Son looked up sadly, "I would, but I'm pretty sure my wife won't let me in!"

We should make washing machine commercials.

Play Ball

It was approaching dusk and the two little girls were burning off a little energy before bedtime.  The youngest was reaching the frustration stage with her hula hoop when the older one ran by with a plastic ball and bat, "Lets play ball!"  Hula hoop forgotten they ran to the grassy area beside the barn just in time to meet their dad coming in from evening chores in the barn.  "Pitch for us daddy!  Pitch for us!!"  Grinning he agreed.  Mom wandered over from watering the flower bed to watch.  

The oldest daughter grabbed the bat and took her batting stance.  Back straight, knees bent, elbows out.  Daddy wound up for the pitch and lobbed one over the "plate".  With a mighty swing she blasted the ball past her daddy, beyond mom and into the gravel in front of the shed, where it was neatly fielded by the Australian Shepherd.  "Run!  Run!" shouted her daddy.  "Where??" she responded looking around the grassy area.  "Just pick a spot for bases." responded her parents.  So off she ran, touching the light pole and yelling "first", high-fiving her mom and yelling "second", smacking the old maple tree and calling out "third".  Her sister cheered her into home, wanting her turn at bat.

Soon a spirited ballgame was taking place with the little girls taking turns at bat and mom serving as cheerleader and second base.  Lexi, the shepherd, scurried happily around, chasing down the balls.  There was a slight hitch since she would only return them to mom and only then after calls and begging, but then mom would toss them to dad and the game would continue.  The yard rang with cheers, yells, and laughter, with daddy laughing and mom cheering the little girls on as they ran happily around the "bases".  

The game ended, with the full moon beginning to show in the early evening sky, when the dog grew tired of running after the ball and decided to keep it.  In high spirits the girls gathered up their toys and went to the house to begin preparations for bath time.  Mom and dad smiled at each other and wondered why they didn't stop more often to just enjoy the life they worked so hard to build for their family.

Mom and dad walked hand and hand to the house feeling satisfied with their time with their children.  Sometimes, we have to remember that children need nurturing as much as the flowers in their beds and the calves in the barn.

The Men's Group

Hubby loves people!  Especially if they come in clumps, groups or crowds.  I blame this on high school athletics that teach young men that it is all about the "team".  After four years of Hubby playing baseball, football and basketball (The transition from football to basketball was a little tricky,  resulting in a few fouls for some pretty physical "blocks" before he acclimated!)  the idea of being part of a group activity was embedded.  Other men tend to have been raised with the same ethics, so we have some pretty healthy "groups" in our town. 

Right now the place to be is at Hardee's from 6:30 to 10:00 on about any morning.  The working men arrive early and grab breakfast and the latest news (gossip).  Before the last of these leave the retirees are starting to arrive to add their two cents worth.  At about 9 am those working in town come for their morning coffee break.  The talk and laughter rolls on and on.  Like Henry says in the show Longmire about his bar, "it is the home of the continual soiree".   

This "men's club" will hold forth on any subject with the steadfast authority of experience and/or just plain pig headedness.  No subject is safe.  Hubby has come home with absolute opinions on everything from politics (I won't even begin with what they proclaim) to growing prize winning vegetables.  In between they cover moon signs, current events (who is chasing who and who got caught), overnight police activity (the ex-police chief is a member), grandkids who are obviously the first of a new super race, break-throughs in medicine (Did you know that eating lots of garlic will prevent the flu?  Probably because no one will get close enough to you to give you a germ!), and probably a few more topics that hubby is smart enough not to pass on to me.

It has gotten so bad that it has moved into the arena of family history.  Whenever someone comes up with a really off-the-wall statement we all look at each other and shout, "coffee group!!!!"

Hubby just grins and keeps on arranging his schedule around 9 am coffee. 

The other morning I had an early appointment.  Hubby announced at bed time that he would get up and go to breakfast in the morning to give me some extra time, since I wouldn't have to cook breakfast.  I demurred, "It's ok.  My appointment isn't until 9:00, I'll have plenty of time to get ready.  You don't have to get up so early."  Knowing that there aren't many things this man hates more than getting up in the morning, I didn't think it really made sense.  "No, no, I don't mind" he returned.  This went back and forth until he confessed, "I couldn't make it to  coffee today and I really want to go to breakfast and see what I missed!"

After he went peacefully to sleep, dreaming, no doubt, about his morning meeting with the coffee group, I decided maybe I had better show up at a few coffee breaks and hone up on my conversational skills.  It's been a long time since Hubby has been that enthusiastic about breakfast with me!

Forty-Five Years

Forty-five years ago,  I tied up the middle Campbell boy on a hot Saturday afternoon during Labor Day week-end.  There were some, including my mother-in-law, who thought we were nuts for getting married.  Maybe my mother did too, but she was sure crazy about my hubby, so maybe not.  I honestly don't remember much about the event except there were a lot of parties and my mother and Aunt Anne had a wonderful time planning it all.  Unlike brides today, I pretty much just went and did whatever they said for me to.  I know there were a lot of people at the wedding, partially because they liked my parents and partly because my Aunt threw great parties and she was hosting the reception at her home.

Just about the time the party started to get going, we were told that it was time for us to leave.  I changed out of my lovely wedding gown into the dress and coat that I had made in my tailoring class at college and we dashed to the car amid a ton of rice.  We were married.  As we drove away we looked at each other and for the first time in weeks, there was no one telling us what to do.  I think at that moment we realized that we were really on our own, sink or swim.

It was a time before the extravagant honeymoons of today.  Hubby had worked as a summer intern for the Intermediate Credit Bank in Louisville and had saved every penny for our honeymoon.  I had worked as a taster (giving out samples in stores) for the Ale-8-One soft drink company and had squirreled away as much as I could.  Hubby had found a little motel on one of his banking trips that he thought would be perfect.  So we took off on the long trip to Fulton, Kentucky and Tennessee.  What we didn't know was that this pretty, quiet little town on the Kentucky-Tennessee line in far western Kentucky was hosting the International Banana Festival that week-end. (Yep.  I have probably heard every joke you are now thinking of!) 

It seems that Fulton was historically the railroad center that received all the bananas that were shipped up the Mississippi River.  From there they were shipped by rail to the rest of the United States.  It was a big deal in the late 1800's and early 1900's.  We arrived to be met at the city limits with a friendly greeting and a welcome banana.  We entered the town to discover it teaming with people and festivities.  Over the next couple of days we ventured out from our little motel (which was actually on the Tennessee side of town) to enjoy the art displays, craft vendors, contests and the colossal 500 lb. banana pudding, plus a free banana every time we crossed the city limits.

However, by about the third day we had reached a crisis point.  Things were beginning to come unraveled in the honeymoon suite, humble though it may be.  Hubby had grown up in a family with two brothers--no sisters.  His mother while sweet, was low-maintenance to a fault.  He was used to getting up, showering and having his breakfast on the table.  The world of primping with make-up,  the teased hair-do's of the sixties, and endless female preparations before breakfast were fast getting to him.  On top of his concern over starving before I finally got ready was the very real problem of how we were going to pay for that very breakfast.  We were rapidly (and literally) eating up our meager savings.  So, as we counted out pennies for our breakfast tab,  I realized we needed to get out of there and go home where I could cook his breakfast in my robe or the marriage might be short lived. 

The marriage was saved and I have spent the last 45 years preparing his breakfast so he can eat when his feet hit the floor.  I figure that I have fixed about 16,200 breakfasts in that time. 

Not bad, considering that I don't even eat breakfast.

A Dew and Two Beers

The view from the window for the last couple of weeks has been of tow-headed kids playing happily in the back yard.   Our daughter-in-law had gall bladder surgery last week and I have been filling in by picking up the boys after school, feeding them supper and then taking supper into town for the ailing mom.  This week I have had the two year old granddaughter all day, too, since her regular baby-sitter is out of town.  It's been a long time since I've been a full time mom and believe me, I'm too old for this!

To make it more fun, it's also tobacco cutting time.  My son and oldest grandson have been helping out friends on a reciprocal basis.  To cut down on labor costs, two or three farmers pitch in and help each other cut their tobacco, thus reducing the amount of labor by the additional hands.  The only thing required when it is your tobacco's turn is that you supply the drinks.  This means coolers iced down with plenty of water, Mt. Dews and beer.  Did I mention beer?

Cutting the tobacco involves working your way down the long rows of tobacco with an implement that looks a lot like a very skinny bladed hatchet, called a tomahawk.  You bend, cut the tobacco stalk, turn and spear it on a piece of wood that is about 1 inch square and four feet long.  Four or five plants will be speared onto one tobacco stick.  Then the sticks are hung in the barn across poles so the tobacco hangs straight down to dry or cure.

Even though my son's crop was severely damaged by the early spring rains, he does have some that will be harvested.  So this week, the guys all gathered at the farm to "bring in the crop".  The little boys were excited to get to go to the patch and listen to the big guys talk and gossip.  The days are hot and the water and dews go down mighty good.  As the day progresses, so do the beers.  It never ceases to amaze me that this crew doesn't maim themselves with the combination of beer and tomahawks, but they never do!  The men are unaffected by their drinks but the little boys return home buzzing with caffeine from the Mt. Dews.

A day or so after the tobacco cutting I looked out to see the little boys climbing the tulip poplar in the driveway with their little sister looking on.  As I watched the idyllic tableau I noticed the little girl take a drink from a green can.  I took off to see who had raided the garage fridge for soft drinks.  I called the little boys down from their tree and sternly lectured them.  "Who told you that you could have a soft drink?"  I questioned.  Heads down, they scuffed the dirt and mumbled, "No one."  "You know that you are supposed to ask before you get a drink.  I always give you something, but you have to ask first.  Besides you know that the Mt. Dew isn't good for your sister." I was in full swing, doing what my daughter calls "beating them to death with my lips".  She says that when I get in full swing I forget to quit. 

I was still going strong when I glanced down into the back of the toy ranger they had been hauling things around the yard in.  Sitting in the back among the boards, rocks, ropes, and toys were two shinning cans of beer.  I stopped in mid-tirade.  "And WHO'S BRIGHT IDEA was it to get the BEERS!!"  I shrieked. 

Without any hesitation, they both turned and pointed at each other and said, "HIS!!"

The good news -- they weren't opened.

Hands-On Hubby

Hubby was a man ahead of his time.  During a period when women were fighting for "equal rights" he was encouraging me to get my education and hunt a job.  The logic of two salaries instead of one was easy for him to figure out.  When I landed the job of County Extension Agent neither one of us knew that it would be a day and night job.  With a six month old child we both were thrown into the world of baby-sitters, feet first.  About the same time he managed to buy a rough, hillside farm out in the county.  It was a 20-30 minute drive, which he made after working all day running an office for a lending agency for farmers.  Soon we were running baby-sitters in shifts as he went to the farm and I went to night meetings. 

To keep from breaking the budget and in spite of careful scheduling, we sometimes would wind up with one or later two children in tow.  Since cows are a little more understanding of a child's disturbances, hubby would often head out to the farm with the kids.  He has always been a hands-on dad and a totally focused businessman which has caused more than one chuckle and astonished expression on those he would meet.  He once had stopped on the way home to call on a client about a loan.  They were deep into conversation when the baby demanded a diaper change in no uncertain terms.  Without missing a beat he whipped a diaper out of the pocket of the truck door, spread the baby out on the hood of the truck and proceeded to "take care of business" with both farmer and baby.  The farmer laughed later that he wrapped up both the baby and the loan in record time.

Remember, this was 40 years ago when daddies didn't do much child care.

One of his favorite stories concerns a trip home after a fun afternoon at the farm for all concerned.  Our son had been dropped off at a neighboring farm to play with their little boy and he had taken our daughter on to "help" him.  After a happy afternoon of following daddy around and playing in the tobacco patch, creek, mud holes, and finishing off with a spell in the fine dirt of the barn floor, she looked a lot more like a small pig than a little girl.  A situation that was pretty common after a visit to the farm.  For that reason we always dressed the kids in "farm clothes".  These were cheap, usually dark colored, and totally replaceable if they were destroyed.  We were old friends with dirt.

On the way home they stopped at the neighboring farm to collect our son.  The farm wife approached the truck to say hello and stopped dead in her tracks when she saw this filthy, totally happy, little girl sitting in the seat.  "Oh, my goodness!" she yodeled in shock.  "What happened?"  Hubby looked back at the truck in confusion.  "Nothing.  She's just been playing."  Before he had the words out, the farm wife had grabbed the dirt covered little girl and started for the house.  "You can't take her home like THIS!  What would your wife say?  I KNOW she would be HORRIFIED!"  (You see, most people never saw me except dressed for work in a suit and heels.  They didn't often see me covered in mud-or worse-after working cattle with hubby. So I guess they thought that I never got dirty and would be offended by it!)  In nothing flat the child was in the tub being vigorously scrubbed.  The wife soon returned  the bemused child, wearing her older daughter's underpants, which covered her from chest to knees and were held up by safety pins.  Her muddy farm clothes had been rinsed out and carefully wrapped in a grocery bag.

Hubby politely took both child and offending clothes, loaded everyone in the truck and laughed all the way back to town.

He's a rare treasure.

The Wedding Bouquet

My daughter's wedding anniversary has just passed and that always brings back memories of that hectic, joyous time.  It was another August, much like this one, when everything was lush and green.  We had spent hours grooming the yard (in fact the whole farm) for the upcoming festivities.  For once everyone pitched in to help with the yard work.  Sometimes it looked more like a party than work but everything seemed to get done.

My daughter was home to make plans and decisions for the upcoming wedding and had pitched in to help with some pruning and weeding.  As we worked around the yard she mused on the trouble she was having deciding what to use in her wedding bouquet.  She had spent the afternoon at the florist looking at books of designs but none of them suited her.  "They are either too formal and stiff or they are so stylishly simple they are silly.  The ornate ones are too fussy for me and the simple, single flower ones are too minimalistic.  I just want something that is simple, but homey too."  She gathered up a pile of weeds from under the hydrangea bush in the side yard.  She sniffed the big white bloom head and sighed, "When I think of home it's the things like this big old bush that come to mind." 

She looked around the yard.  "I love this yard.  It's so shady and full of stuff, yet it all looks like it belongs.  Like the yard and the house somehow grew here together.  It's pretty,  but it also is comfortable, like a warm hug."  I smiled to myself.  The yard blooming with roses, lilies, and hydrangeas in the summer and Iris, roses and day lilies in the spring was a feat of low maintenance beds and hardy perennials interspersed this summer, especially, with lots of bright annuals.  She had put her finger on the exact effect I had worked for--that it looked like it belonged to the farmhouse it framed. 

She gathered up the clippings and carried them to the edge of the hayfield that surrounds the front of the yard.  "Look!"  she laughed, "even the field is pretty!"  She pointed to the gently nodding, delicate blooms of the Queen Ann's Lace dotting the hay field.  Suddenly she turned and spread her arms wide.  "That's the answer.  I want this farm in my bouquet.  I want it filled with the flowers of my childhood and my home.  Roses, Queen Ann's Lace, and hydrangea blooms--that's what I want!"

Fortunately, the florist was a country girl and willing to try anything.  She planned and designed and added a few lilies and a little lily of the valley ("Oh, that's what grew around Grandma's steps." daughter remembered).  The day before the wedding the florist was literally picking flowers from the yard and road-side (Hubby had mowed the front field to manicure the farm for company so she had to broaden her area.) searching out the perfect blooms to make the "memory bouquet".

The day of the wedding the flowers were unveiled.  With a tear in her eye, the bride touched each flower...this is for my home, this one for the farm, and this one for family.  "It's perfect," she breathed.  And it was.

Unfortunately, it also weighed as much as a five gallon bucket of feed.

Thank goodness her farm girl muscles were up to the challenge of carrying it around.

Fried Green Tomatoes

There comes a time when even the most die hard tomato enthusiast has lost their craving for the luscious, red globes adorning the tomato vines in the garden.  When that time comes I sneak out into the garden in the quiet of the evening and pluck a few of the glorious, green, unripe globes for my own craving.  Fried Green Tomatoes.

For years they were a quiet, secret delicacy enjoyed by southern gardeners.  They were a dish dreamed up to use the abundance of tomatoes when the needs of canning and bacon and tomato sandwiches had been met.  Thrifty gardeners then applied their thoughts to other ways to serve up this garden staple.  It was inevitable--after all southerners will fry anything--that someone would try frying up these sour, unripe fruits (vegetables?).  Thus a Southern tradition was born.

The movie "Fried Green Tomatoes" unleashed this treat onto the world.  I doubt that many of the movie-goers had ever eaten or even dreamed of eating such a thing until they appeared on the menu of the depression era, now infamous, barbecue joint the Whistle Stop Cafe.  While the barbecue served at the cafe was questionable the fried green tomatoes became a fad for thousands of movie fans.  It wasn't long before you began seeing them pop up on upscale restaurant's menus, mostly under the appetizers.  Some of them are actually good, but mostly they try to get too fancy.  Fried green tomatoes are down home, simple cooking a its best.

I remember that my mother loved this treat.  She would rescue a perfectly, round green tomato before my dad could decree that it would be allowed to ripen into a perfect "sandwich" tomato.  She would then slice it into neat slices and dredge each slice in corn meal seasoned with salt and pepper.  The mealy slices would then be dropped into sizzling hot bacon grease.  A few minutes to brown on one side and then it would be flipped over to continue browning on the other side.  The resulting crispy, golden brown slices were then placed  on her plate to be enjoyed.  No dipping sauces, no spicy glaze, no additional seasonings--just delicate, slightly sour and delicious. 

Mother ate them as a vegetable for dinner.  My dad liked them with his breakfast, which consisted of fried bacon, fried eggs, fried potatoes, fried tomatoes, and toast with lots of butter. ( His cholesterol at 80 years old was somewhere in the 90's.  Good genes are better than healthy eating!)  No matter when you eat them they are a tasteful reminder of summer's waning and fall's imminence.

I just happen to have the perfect one in sight for supper tonight.

You Can't Take it Back

I recently had a conversation with a soon to be new grandma.  She was a little concerned that ,while her daughter was eagerly awaiting the birth of her child, she was a little too laid back about the upcoming event.  To encouragements to take part in a few of the many preparation for childbirth classes she responded that the nurses would know all about it and would tell her what to do.  Grandma-to-be was a little worried.  I assured her that nature was a good teacher and she would soon pick up the needed skills. 

After all, my son survived.

I don't think there were ever two parents any less prepared to bring home a baby than we were.  Excited, delighted, and tickled pink, but not too prepared.  I had grown up the middle of a family that didn't provide any babies to practice on.  I worked in my dad's store instead of baby-sitting like most of my friends, and had never been exposed to babies other than briefly when they were held safely by their mothers.  The presentation of my wrinkled, squirming little bundle of job filled me with terror!  I had no idea how to deal with this demanding and loud little person.  I literally asked the nurse (a friend from our neighborhood) to dress him before we left the hospital.

We arrived home to the carefully prepared nursery, lovingly painted and decorated, and stocked with 6 sleepers, 3 receiving blankets, 6 t-shirts, and one package of  the newly developed pampers. (no old cloth diapers for us!)  The baby promptly welcomed us home by producing a large bowel movement that reduced his lovely "going home" outfit to green mush.  Fortunately, (for him) our neighbor from across the street had arrived to welcome us home and proceeded to show us how to change a diaper. 

By six o'clock our sweet bundle of joy had been crying for what seemed like hours and hours.  Thanks to our inefficiency and the defects in the design of the early pampers (no elastic at the legs!) everything that went into the diaper wound up all down the legs of the little sleepers. Hubby and I were reduced to walking wounded trying to figure out how to soothe our newborn and what to do next.  We had used all his outfits and were taking turns walking the baby, who was now dressed in his last t-shirt, one of the few remaining diapers and a small afghan (the receiving blankets were history, too.  No one told us what aim little boys had when changing them.)  We were burping on an old t-shirt of Hubby's (we never thought about a few cloth diapers for burpers), and looking pretty pitiful when the back door opened and a friend (with 3 children of her own) walked in with a casserole for supper.  She took one look at us and demanded, "Give me that baby!!" 

With relief we turned him over to more capable hands.  In just minutes the screaming baby gave a few hiccups and thankfully shuddered to silence.  I looked up from my seat at the kitchen table, dazed with exhaustion and terror, and mumbled, "It's just like buying something one sale!  YOU CAN'T TAKE IT BACK!!" 

With sympathy and a lurking giggle, the neighbor took over and in a short while had organized the neighborhood to our rescue.  Soon friends were arriving with left-over baby clothes (one even taking them off her daughter's dolls where they had been recycled into doll clothes.), blankets, and diapers.  Best of all they brought advice and comfort to the distraught parents.  In a short time we had clean clothes in the dryer, dinner on the table and the baby down for a nap.

Our son did survive our ineptness.  We did learn how to be parents.  Probably no class is as effective as the reality of dealing with an infant.

Our son, contrary to the belief that nursing babies never have colic, cried for 6 months. 

It probably was sheer terror at being at the mercy of parents whom he felt were likely to kill him in their ignorance!

Corn Time

Yesterday was garden corn time on the farm.  It's a day I look forward to and dread at the same time.  Sort of like childbirth--hard work and misery but the results are worth the effort.  The problem with corn is that you have it for one day.  Every ear is ready at once and must be picked, shucked, silked, blanched, chilled, scraped from the cob and frozen for the coming winter.  Each year we make great plans to stagger the planting so we'll have a little now and later through the summer.  Somehow it never happens.  One year we planted two plantings, two weeks apart.  I swear every ear was ready on the same day.  This year we were aiming for a month apart, but it rained so much we never got it done. So, as usual, my whole corn crop was ready on one day.

Our garden has been pitiful this year.  The countryside is lush and green instead of the brown and dry of a typical August, but my garden is sad.  Two rows of beans just flat drowned the week we had five inches of rain.  The tomatoes got a blight and the eggplant never made anything bigger than a nubbin.  The only thing that has thrived is the cucumbers and they have been prodigious, producing in numbers and sizes that are staggering.  The corn has done well, we just don't have much of it.  The good news is that picking at 80 degrees is a lot more fun than picking at 100 degrees, which is what we usually have.

I drug the grandsons out of the house with promises of ice cream later and we trooped to the garden.  Armed with feed sacks we attacked the corn rows.  In a short time we had filled our sacks and were sitting under the old Maple tree in the cool shade.  Everyone grabbed a chair and we piled the corn in the middle and began pulling the shucks off.   This is my favorite time.  The quiet, repetitious movements leave lots of time and brain power for "yarns".  The boys chatted about this and that before asking, "Did daddy have to do this too?"  My mind flew back to the early years on the farm when growing a garden meant cheap food through the winter with hungry kids to feed.  The garden was bigger then and I did a lot more canning and freezing than I do now.

"Yes," I replied, "They helped with everything, whether they wanted to or not!  I particularly remember one summer when Papa had had a surplus of fertilizer from another project and decided to apply it to the garden.  It  was  move that should have killed the whole garden but the garden gods were kind (or cruel, however you want to look at it) and instead everything just took off and grew like crazy.  It was one of the years we had planted a lot of corn and, of course, it all came in on one day.  That summer one of my son's friends had become a second son and just about moved in with us.  Spying the three kids going to the barn I quickly corralled them and issued orders to help with the picking.  Gathering up their feed sacks they marched reluctantly into the rows of corn forming tunnels of verdant green."

"All through the hot morning we picked corn, filling our sacks and dumping them under the old Maple tree, about where we sit right now.  The pile of corn grew and grew and still we were finding ears to pull.  Finally, the last ear was found and we gathered around to begin shucking the corn.  The kids stared at  the pile in awe.  They literally had picked a mountain of corn, piled up in a heap taller than the tallest kid.  We were all a little taken back by the sheer size of our task, but with only a little grousing they began to shuck.  Much later,when they finally had finished the corn and reduced the mountain to stacks of yellow goodness, they trooped off to hide in the barn while I proceeded to finish the job of blanching, chilling, scraping and freezing.  On that day I froze 75 pints of corn--my all time record for one day. "

"The little friend announced at supper that night that he thought he would go home for a while.  At least until after frost."

Now grown with children, still wants to know if the corn is ready before he will come visit.