(This post was last modified: 10-22-2021, 02:35 PM by DanLaw.)
(10-22-2021, 12:14 AM)ILipripper660 Wrote:(10-21-2021, 04:55 PM)DanLaw Wrote:(10-21-2021, 02:55 PM)Lipripper660 Wrote: On the home place growing up we had fruit trees that lined our very huge garden. Let’s put it this way, we worked the garden with the same implements we farmed with and we canned a lot of what came from the garden to feed our family of 11. Along the south end of the garden was a row of apples. There were three varieties; one soft apple we used for apple sauce and apple butter, one tart apple we used for baking and cooking, and one sweet crisp apple that we would put in bushel baskets in the cellar for eating fresh and we pressed a bunch for cider. I don’t know the varieties because I was a kid who only knew which one I liked to eat and the eating apples were so super juicy and sweet when the first frosts came. Walk out to get the mail? Pick an apple. Changing water? Pick an apple. Working the fields south of the house? Pick a few apples and put em in a pocket. They were so good and I really missed them as I moved away. The honey crisp apple is like those of my youth. Come fall, there was a lot of clean up to do in the vicinity of the fruit trees. The garden was all but done. There were slash piles of pruning and from the shade trees in the yard to pile and burn. I recall recognizing what a great cleaner fire was. It would take weedy, grassy ditch banks to a clean new slate and it would reduce those big piles of fruitwood to ash in the garden. We had a BBQ pit in the yard and as I piled the wood to burn I’d keep and cut the bigger stuff to stack and burn in the pit. As I’d do that I found it nice to build a little fire on the pit hearth and stab an apple on a willow stick to roast over the pit chimney. My oh my! Apple pie without the crust. This soap reminds me of those baked apples with the scent notes of wood smoke and apples.
Your posts often bring back remembrance of youth. Really need relocate, nature beckons
I’ll do you a solid and make sure to share tales of frost bitten cheeks when it’s 25 below zero, the wind is blowing 30mph, water is frozen, vehicles won’t start, and the cows are wet. Some mornings are so gloriously miserable it’s hard to make ones lips move to speak. Can’t wait!
I lived that side of ranch life too albeit in NorthEast. Literally had to walk over a mile across pastures and multiple barb wire and electric fences, not to mention cattle feces simply to get to the country lane for the school bus
Unlike suburban/extraurban acquaintances whose children regularly make a busload of fellow students wait 5-10 minutes for them, in the country the bus had no fixed schedule (only about a 30 minute window) and would not even bother stopping if there nobody to collect. In other words, one made damn sure to be on site early and prepared to wait for a considerable time, heat of summer or near blizzard of winter.