Your “sharing with a friend” reminds me of several years ago when we raised belted galloways, we would go to a thrift store weekly and get a pickup truckload of bakery items, mostly bread. Some of the items would be several days prior to their “freshness” date, but discarded because of failure to be uniform in size, color etc. We paid ten dollars for the whole load. It was cheaper than cattle grain and great for fattening cattle and hogs. We also shared with several neighbors living on small pensions.
I remember asking an elderly gent if he needed some fresher bread and he answered that he didn’t mind removing a little mold and wouldn’t take any fresh, but how he loved raisin bread when we would have some for him. How grateful and thrifty some of our elders are!!
I, too, here in Maine have rock hard clay. Have been working on my soil for 50 plus years and have some beds that are very friable after adding literally tons of compost. Yes, it is “black gold” and I am fortunate to have tons of it every year to share with family and friends. Having two miniature ponies, all the neighbors suitable kitchen waste and grass clippings and all the seaweed I can get hubby to help me harvest makes for a big pile. As I share, it is like a community project. I keep a thermometer in it and everyone is amazed when I get it up to 120 degrees. When it starts to cool. hubby takes his loader, turns it and it starts to heat up again.
My children say that I am the only one they know that gets all excited about a compost pile, but I bet Granny would understand my enthusiasm.
Like you, I have been poor but was so blessed in other ways, didn’t even realize I was poor. When you have plenty of milk, eggs, poultry, beef, pork, wild berries and apples, how can you feel poor feasting on custard, blueberry and apple pie, homemade icecream, cottage cheese, breads and biscuits hot from the oven.
Just sitting here watching the snow falling today and dreaming about the garden I will be planting, God willing in a few weeks.
What a beautiful word picture!
God Bless You! I just love your reply about the bread. :-)
I love being able to share this bounty with others. My kids are grown now and both live hours away so I love sharing with my retired friends. I know they worked hard when they worked and now they are *so* appreciative of little blessings. It’s awsome just to see some smiles light up when I bring in homemade bread or home canned goods. One lady gave me her small pressure canner yesterday as she said she will never be able to use it again and wanted someone to have it who *would* use it. I love it. It’ll only do 3 pints at a time but sometimes that’s just right!
I have to tell you that the man in my life is from Maine. He moved to Texas 18 years ago and found me here. LOL He talks quite a bit about his grandparents farming up there. We have a good time comparing notes some days. He also laughs at me and my love of compost.
It was up past 70 degrees here today but we had an ice day last week. Was cool to look out that morning and see that ice was everywhere EXCEPT on my compost piles. I don’t have a thermometer for them but that pretty much let me know that they are doing the job. HA! At least they are warm enough not to let the ice settle. :-)
Hope to see you again here. :-)
My children say that I am the only one they know that gets all excited about a compost pile, but I bet Granny would understand my enthusiasm.<<<
Yes, granny understands........LOL
On my trips for the rotten horse manure, a woman who lived across the street, [I sold them the land they were on], would send her husband to help me load all my barrels, so that I had a pickup load.
I have not worked in many years with a large pile, but did keep small ones going in the greenhouses.
They worked fine, the bottom less trash cans, when I sat a rabbit cage on top of the can, fed the rabbit and put weeds, etc in the can and every week or so, stuck the water hose in the can to water the bed.......LOL, my version of a ‘rabbit factory’.
I shouldn’t take the credit for the idea, our niece lived with us and wanted a pet rabbit, so we got her one, but it was a winter of snow, so he went in the greenhouse.
I had a planter box of lettuce and it did not grow, so when Kendra cleaned her cage, I told her to toss the droppings in that bed, thinking that it would help for the next crop.
In a week the lettuce was growing beautifully.
I still think that a track [pipe suspended from the ceiling?] with a rabbit cage that could be pushed down the track, would work for fertilizing the entire plant bed........But Bill said NO.....LOL. Truth is, he did not like all my ideas.
Yes, I have noticed that we ate better in the hard times, than we did in the richer times. It takes too much of ones time to get rich, there are not enough hours to do both.
What fun, getting enough bread for the animals and neighbors too, it is more fun to share.
One of the shocks for me, Kingman and the surrounding area is not a friendly town and they do not share, I think that is why I liked Wellton, we were all poor and if a farmer said “I will plow tomorrow, get what you can salvage tonight, of the crop still in the fields, the men did and delivered it to the neighbors, lettuce, squash, grapes, whatever the crop was.
I have even had the rancher that we bought our alfalfa hay from come to the house and say “Ruth, I have ordered irrigation water for the fields, so get all the broken bales that you can, tonight...........for free.
LOL, the hardest that I ever worked, was at Mary’s one day, Bob, who bought and leased her farm, saw me there and told me that I could have all the bales in the field, as he was burning it ......Do Not every go to load hay, in shorts.......
We hooked Mary’s old trailer to my pickup and Mary at 75 years of age and I hauled hay to her place, until the fire reached us.
We were a year, getting it all moved to our place 6 or so miles away.
Bill fell in love with Kingman and we moved here, if I had known it was such a cold/selfish town, I would have stayed in Wellton.
I thought it was something wrong with me, but then some of the people that I sold places to, left for the same reason.
I look back at Wellton and find it was the best part of my life, we fought to survive and the challenge of surviving is a lot better than writing a check for every thing.