Birthday's keep Comin'

Well, we have another birthday girl in the house. Ellie is celebrating today. I hope you have a fun birthday Ellie and i wish you many more. I had a photo I planned to post and wouldn't you know I can't find it. So the photo will have to wait. At any rate Happy Birthday.

I am still sick. I thought I was getting better but I guess I was wrong. What is it with colds theses days - they seem to hang on and on. Maybe it's just I am getting older and I want it to get over with quicker. I hope it runs its course real soon. Since i am not feeling well enough to be on the computer here's another little story I wrote you might enjoy.

The Kitchen Garden

We always had plenty to eat because we raised everything. Most of our food came from the kitchen garden. The garden was located just outside our back door. As soon as the snow was gone in the spring we would begin preparing the garden. During the winter the cornstalks were dumped on the garden after the corn was shucked. Ashes from the wood stove had been dumped into the garden. One corner of the garden was dug up and used to plant tobacco seeds for when we were ready to transplant them to the field. In the end of the tobacco bed would be planted lettuce. That was the first spring crop. As soon as the lettuce was ready we would have killed lettuce and onions. Boy what a treat on a nice spring day. The garden then would be plowed ,disked, harrowed, and made ready to plant. Normally it was planted the same way every year. We had peas, onions, lettuce, carrots, beets, swiss chard , spinch or turnips, beans, potatoes, corn, cucumbers, tomatoes. When the peas came off we dug them up and planted more beans. At the end of the garden we grew horseradish, on the side there was rhubarb. We plated 2 rows of peas, 2 rows of onions We planted different varieties of beans we had half runners, cornfield beans were planted in between the corn, their vines grew tall and wrapped around the cornstalks and were great to pickle along with the corn. We had October beans and pink Tips which were great to dry. We also planted pintos. The first year we had electricity was 1951. None of our neighbors had electricity either so every one was to recieve it. It was determined that our electric pole would be placed in the edge of the garden. My grandmother had just planted her garden and the peas were beginning to sprout through the black dirt. I remember my grandmother being so worried that the men from the REA (Mountain Electric) would stomp on all her peas and we would not have any peas to eat. As luck would have it, those men dug the hole, placed the pole in the ground and strung the wire , all without a footprint in Grandmother’s garden. She was so proud.
Here is a photo of that same pole last summer. It is still standing.
Here is a photo of our garden a few years ago. I special ordered the bean seed from TN so the grand girls could plant the same kind of beans their great great grandmother planted in her garden.
Sunflowers, tomatoes and cute chicks.
That's it for today.