From the time I was about eight or nine years old, I spent a week or two every summer at my grandparents’ farm. They lived in Clarke County, south of Indianola. Aside from my grandparents, there were three uncles, an aunt and her son who was my age. My mother’s youngest sister, still in her teens, seemed more like an older sister than an aunt. Life on the farm was busy and exciting. They still farmed mostly with horses, raised virtually all their own food, “washed up” on Saturday evenings before going to town to shop and meet with friends for a bit of socializing.
My grandma and aunts cooked on a wood-burning stove, and on hot summer days, in the wash-house on a stove used to heat water for “washing up” and laundry. They turned out hearty, delicious noontime meals often including two kinds of meat raised there on the farm (mostly pork and chicken) and vegetables fresh from the large garden. There were always homemade bread or biscuits, fresh fruit in summer, pickles and relishes, two or three desserts – usually involving whipped cream – and finally, Grandma’s crystal candy dish with hard candies and peppermints. After dinner, the men retired to the living room for naps on the sofas and over-stuffed chairs while the women and girls spent an hour or so washing dishes and turning leftovers into sandwich filling, soup or casseroles for the evening meal.
Once the men had “settled their dinner” they stopped in the kitchen for another bite of pie or cake and a glass of milk or iced tea before going back to the field, the barn or other chores. Twice a day they milked several cows by hand,. The women made butter and rich desserts from the cream that rose to the top of the milk, saving the watery skimmed milk that remained for the chickens and pigs and any dogs or cats that lived mainly on leftovers from the days’ meals. In summer, after the crops had been planted and baby animals born, the main farm chores consisted of mowing, turning and storing loose hay in the big, airy hayloft. In due time, oats were harvested for winter feed for the livestock along with the corn that would be picked and shelled later. The golden oat straw was heaped into huge straw stacks for later use as bedding for the animals that would spend most of the winter in the barns.
Summer work was less labor-intensive, but hotter than at other times of the year, and progressed at a slower rate. Machinery and tools were cleaned and repaired in the relatively cool shade of the machine shed. Fences were tightened, rotting posts replaced, leaky roofs patched. And when there was a lull in the chores, there was time to dig a few worms and spend an hour or three under a willow tree by the river with a rod and reel in hand.
Being a city girl, I preferred to spend hot afternoons splashing in the town’s swimming pool or catching a matinee in an air-conditioned theater. I could walk the three short, shady blocks from our house to the locker plant where they sold ice cream cones, Popsicles and other cool treats. At home, there was always my mother’s solution for a sweltering summer afternoon – a long, cool soak in the bathtub. But even that wasn’t possible on the farm, we had to settle for “stand-up sparrow baths.”
On the farm, little kids could splash in one of the washtubs set under a tree near the wash-house. Older kids were limited to water fights and dips in the horse tank, which was cooling but creepy with green, mossy stuff growing on its concrete sides and long-ago pet goldfish darting about. The goldfish, believed to be simply fancy carp, had been introduced to the tank in hopes that they would eat the green slime, but if they did, they couldn’t keep up with the supply.
There were plenty of fun, adventures and mischief with my young aunt and boy cousin, but we helped with some of the summer chores, too. I especially liked hunting for the eggs that Grandma’s hens laid everywhere but in the laying boxes in the chicken house, and I helped a lot in the kitchen – until I was banned for breaking two water pitchers in a row while washing dishes. Back home again, I treasured those farm memories – but it was sure nice to get a leisurely soak in a real bathtub!