Mama’s Kitchen –

Being the oldest of 4 boys and 3 girls, I was task with the job of filling mama’s fire wood box two times a day, morning before going to school and again late in the afternoon after school. It set next to her wood burning stove in her kitchen.

I can still remember the smells, sights and sounds in her kitchen. That old blue with white speckled enamel 1/2 gallon coffee pot, setting on the far right back corner of her stove, filled with hot water ready to make a pot of coffee within minutes at meal times or when we had friends or neighbors dropping by for a visit. The smell of mesquite wood burning. Her kitchen always had a lingering smell of fresh fried bacon and fresh homemade biscuits and white yeast bread.

Mama never reminded me to refill her fire wood box, but if in the early predawn morning hours everyone in the family found a sweet pickle and a slice of buttered white bread on their breakfast plate, I knew, I knew it was to late to get fried bacon, biscuits, eggs and gravy. I knew I was in serious trouble because I had forgot to fill mama’s fire wood box the night before.

Over the years as I got older I was given more responsibility and that lead to more important and difficult chores. Like hand milking our 2 old milk cows. That was a 2-time a day chore just like filling mama’s firewood box.
I’m not complaining about my chores. Everyone had chores that had to be done. My 2 oldest sisters were responsible for letting our poultry out of the coop in the morning and locking them into the coop at night to keep them safe from predators as well as feeding and watering the chickens, ducks and turkeys. Finding all their nest and keeping the eggs gathered.

In the summer months, each brother and sister had garden chores. Keeping the weeds pulled. No, no kid was allowed in the garden with a hoe rake or shovel. It was all done by hand so the plants were not damaged. Each was given a few rows to work. Each one had to care for and harvest tomato’s or maybe okra, pepper or squash everyday. What was harvested today mama cooked and served the next day.

When we started harvesting more than we could eat, mama canned the excess so we would have garden vegetables during the lean winter months. In the summer Mama sent us kids out to pick wild plumbs and in the fall we gleaned harvested potato and onion fields for missed and vegetables rejected because they were bruised or to large or small to be sold at the supermarket. Mama carefully cleaned and canned these vegetables as well.

This was life on a dry-land farm after the end of that so called Great Depression when WWII food rationing was coming to an end.

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Why is common sense so uncommon?
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