Sunday to Friday

Well, It has been a few days since I posted and I didn't want anyone to thiink I had abandoned this blog. I have not. The weather here has been crazy this week, rain, and then 7-10 inches of snow and then sunshine and we are expected to have temperatures in the 70's on Monday.

I did go out to check out the new additions to the Northern Quest Casino here in Spokane. It is huge (Speedy and Sherri) They do not charge admission, however, they don't mind if you leave a donation -- which I did.

I am looking at replacing the flooring in the Out House (my motor home) with laminate flooring. I got some samples but none of them were exactly what I want - so its back to Home Depot for more samples until I decide what I want. If I get enough samples I could probably use those.

Speaking of outhouses the out house we had when I was growing up was a little ways down the path on the way to the barn. We had an old out house and then they dug a pit and built a new one. The old one was made from rough lumber and logs and had cracks in it. It had a shingled roof . Whenever a windstorm would come we were continuallly looking for the shingles to nail them back on.When it snowed the snow came through the cracks and you had to wipe off your sitting place. In the summer there were lots of bees in the outhouse so you had to be careful where you sat as not to get stung. Once in awhile you might find an occasional chicken in there. It was in sad shape. There were three seats in it, a large one, a medium one, and small one. An old keg of corncobs sat in the corner because my grandfather preferred using a corncob to a page out of the catalog. It was also where we stored the hoes, rakes and shovels.

When the new outhouse was built it was built out of nice lumber with no cracks and it had a tin roof. It was smaller so there were only two seats and they were the same size. We still used the catalogs but the nail keg stayed in the old one and my grandfather had his own private toilet. The only time I can remember of having store bought toilet paper was when we had out of town company come to visit and then they only bought one roll. We kids were told we still had to use the catalog. Of course we snuck the toilet paper when we could. When the roll was gone both us and the company had to go back to the catalog.

I found this poem and i thought it was pretty good.

Caught In The Act

I recall one time when I was a lad
A bit of advice I got from my Dad.
I'd retired "out-back" and reached for the "Mak'ins."
It was right after breakfast of eggs and bacon.
I rolled a smoke like any cowboy'd do -
Admired it a bit and lit it, too.
I got it going good but then turned pale
Cause I heard someone coming down the trail.
I chucked my cigarette down a crack in the floor
Just before my Dad walked through the door.
He stepped in and sniffed around
And I knew then, I was on thin ground.
The smoke swirled up from the crack in the floor
And I wished that I was out that door.
Dad sat down and rolled a smoke
And lit it up before he spoke.
He said, "son, is that your cigarette smoking?"
I knew at a glance he wasn't joking.
I hung my head and said "Yes, it is."
Then he flicked his ashes and looked at his.
"Son," he said, "just look at me.
I've smoked for years as you can see.
My teeth aren't clean and my fingers are yellow.
It's a mighty bad habit to get, young fellow.
I used to chew and that's worse, yet.
The tobacco habit is easy to get.
Son, if you quit now it'll be easy to do
But if you don't, it'll get the best of you."
Now, he didn't exactly say this in rhyme
But, I've remembered his words for a mighty long time.
I'll always be grateful for that smoke in the crack
And the lecture Dad gave me in the "house-out-back."
"author unknown"

And that's It For Today!!

Easter Memories

Well, I don't know what happened to our wonderful sunshine but we woke up to gray skies, clouds and some rain. Typical weekend weather. I want to take this time to wish all my readers, my friends, and my family a Happy Easter. It is a Joyous Day - A day to celebrate the birth, death and resurrection of Christ.

When we were growing up we celebrated by going to church and then to our Sunday School Teacher's afterwards for an easter egg hunt.

We didn't have a lot of fancy eggs or baskets etc. We had to go out to the hen house and gather our own eggs. We would boil our eggs on Saturday afternoon. We had one package of dye for all of us and you only got two or three eggs each. We didn't have any store bought baskets so we would make our own our of oatmeal boxes, crepe paper and flour paste. Somewhere we had gotten hold of some fake grass and we used that for the inside and we saved it from year to year. We used pipe cleaners for the handle or sometimes we would just have a piece of old bailing wire. They weren't fancy but we loved them. We would place our eggs in our little baskets and on Easter morning our dad would take the eggs out and hide them for us. We would hide and hunt those eggs over and over. It was great fun.

We always got a new dress and shoes for Easter. The only other time we got new shoes was when we started school. Sometimes our dresses were homemade from chop sacks or if we could afford a new piece of material they were made from that. If we got a store bought dress it was ordered from the National Bellas Hess catalog. Boy it was fun to go thru that catalog and pick out a new dress and then wait for the mailman to deliver it. It never looked quite like the dress in the catalog though.

I remember my aunt telling a story about her and my mother working on dresses for her daughter and my sister and I. They were pretty little organdy dresses with lots of ruffles and sashes. You know the kind to be worn when the sun is shining. Well, it had been a pretty spring and then Easter came and it turned cold and snowy. We had to wear our winter clothes and coats to church and didn't get to show off their handiwork.

And that's Easter memories for today.

Do You Remember??

Well, it was another beautiful sunshiny day here in Spokane. I got an email that I thought was intereting and I thought I would share it with you.

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE 1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's!!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-base paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps not helmets on our heads.

As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pick up truck on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter and bacon. We drank Kool-aid made with real white sugar. And, we weren't overweight. WHY?

Because we were always outside, playing...that's why!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And, we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times,we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's and X-boxes.. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet and no chat rooms.

WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team.. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers, and inventors ever.

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.
If YOU are one of them? CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good.

While you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave and lucky their parents were.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it ?

That's it for today.

Green Bean Capital of The World

Well, when I was growing up Johnson County, Tennessee was proclaimed the Green Bean Capital of The World. A lot of the farmers would plant one to two acres and sometmes five to ten acres of beans.

When the time came for harvesting they would line up pickers to hand pick the beans. I was always "fortunate" to be among those pickers. It was the way we earned our money for clothes and school supplies.

Usually there was one person in the neighborhood who had an old truck. He would drive along the back roads of the area and anyone who wanted to work that day would come out and get on his truck. Men, women, boys and girls would fill up the back of that truck. When he had picked up as many pickers as he needed he would drive to the bean field.

Upon arrival at the bean field we would unload and grab a hamper( a bushel basket) to put our beans in. You could either pick one row or two rows to pick. The beans were usually picked three to four times usually about once a week. You wanted to be careful so you didn't tromp on the vines or pick beans that were too small. The owner of the field kept an eye out for those people who mishandled the vines and wouldn't let you pick in his field anymore.

After your hamper was full you yelled "HAMPER" and there were men ("carriers") who would bring you an empty basket give you a ticket and carry your full hamper to the scales at the end of the field. Your hamper had to weigh 30 pounds. If it didnt weigh 30 pounds they would come and get some extra beans to make up. If your hamper was over 30 pounds they would bring the extra beans back to you.

At the scales your beans were dumped onto a sorter, and the leaves and small beans were picked out and they were sacked to take to market. Usually there would be 100 to 150 bushels sometimes more depending how big the field was and how good the beans were.

There were fast pickers and slow pickers. You got fifty cents for each basket you picked. A fast picker would pick 8 to 10 bushels a day. A slow picker 2 or 3. I came in somewhere in the middle at about 6-8. That meant I made about three or four dollars for the day.

Since we started early morning we wore a long sleeved jacket or shirt and long pants because the dew would still be on the beans and your legs would get wet. As the day wore on and it got hotter you ended up taking off your shirt and pants for shorts and sleeveless tops. We usually started picking about 7:30 or 8 AM and would pick straight through til dinnertime or noon. At dinner we would all load up in the back of the truck and go to the nearest country store for lunch. Sometimes there would be more than one bean truck there for dinner. You could get a bottle of pop for a nickel, a piece of bologna and cracker for a dime, potato chips for a nickel and a brown mule (ice cream) for a nickel. So basically you spent about a quarter (or a half bushel of beans) for your dinner. Some people would bring their lunch and eat it in the bean field. After eating lunch everyone would get back in the old truck and back to the field we would go.

There was a milk can full of water and a dipper by the scales. If you got thirsty and wanted a drink you drank out of the dipper along with everyone else.

We had a lot of fun in the bean field. You knew most everybody there because we were all friends and neighbors. Everyone talked and joked as they picked. In a big patch of beans there might be four or five bean trucks so there would be people that lived in a different community that came to pick. As we got to be teenagers, sometimes we would develop a crush on one of the boys and try to get him to carry out our beans for us or hang around the store at dinnertime.

At the end of the day, you took your tickets (one for each bushel you picked) up to the owner and he would pay you cash for your tickets. You got back on the truck and the driver dropped you off in front of your house. It didn't cost anything to ride the truck but the owner of the field paid the driver for each person he brought to pick.

If there were beans to pick the next day the driver would let you know and off to another field you would go to repeat the experience.

Some of the farmers we picked beans for were Gene Stout, Ed Lloyd, A.J. Stalcup, Ben Snyder, Ambrose Garland, and Boyd Ray.

Here is a little excerpt I found about the history of green beans in Johnson County.

In 1935 many farmers began planting green beans. Soon Johnson County became the largest bean producing county in Tennessee. In 1948 the bean crop was estimated at over three hundred thousand bushels. Johnson County was tagged as “The Green Bean Capital”. Mechanical pickers ended the success of the crop in Johnson County. Mechanical pickers were cheaper than hand picking so farmers stopped raising bean crops. By 1964 only one thousand four hundred and fifty acres of beans were planted.

That's it for Today.

Spring Weather

Well, There has been a change in the weather. Yesterday was an absolutely drop dead gorgeous day!! The High was 64 and the low was 40. Today the temp is up to 68 and the low was 38 -- I think Spring has finally Sprung!! And not a minute too soon!!

It is getting close to Easter and time for planting the garden. Both my mother and dad believed you should plant your potatoes on Good Friday. It is one of the few things they did agree on.

Here are a few other "words of wisdom" from the old timers on planting both your vegetable garden and your flower garden.

Always plant flowers and vegetables that bear crops above ground is during the light of the Moon; that is, from the day the Moon is new to the day it is full.

Flowering bulbs and vegetables that bear crops below ground should be planted during the dark of the Moon; that is, from the day after it is full to the day before it is new again.

Planting potato's on the full moon will cause them to grow closer to the top of the ground and be sunburned. Planting them on the dark of the moon will cause them to grow deep roots and make it almost impossible to dig.


Transplant flowering plants in the light of the moon.

Plant your pansies on the north side of the house.

Flowers that are planted in the sign of the twins will bloom and be beautiful.


I have been playing around with some of my photos in Picasa. I am hoping I made a movie out of these. We will see.

I guess my movie didn't work-- I will keep playing around with it.

That's it for today.

Tri State

Well, The weather around here is not changing much, we had more snow today. It snows in the morning and by afternoon it is melted. It makes for some tricky driving. Yesterday the Highway patrol responded to more than 30 accidents on the freeway. Snoqualmie Pass was closed again in both directions. They were requiring either studded tires or chains to get across the pass. Only problem was if you were caught driving with studded tires there was $124.00 fine. Studded tires are only legal in the State of Washington from November 1 to March 31. Sometimes they do extend the deadline but this particular year they didn't. I guess they thought since we have had 98 inches of snow already that it would just stop. Unfortunately we are still getting lots of snow in the mountains.

I hear I have some new readers on my blog....so I wanted to give out a shout to the Tri State Growers in Mountain City!!! Hey Tri State!!

Now let me give you a little history about Tri State. First off it is older than I am - but not by much. It was started in 1945. They sell anything to do with farming and gardening. You name it - they have it.

On the farm, we bought almost everything we needed from the Tri State. The first of the year would be when we bought our tobacco seeds and canvas to sow the tobacco bed.
We also bought feed for the animals, fertilizer, and machinery. In the spring we would buy vegetable seeds.

A few years ago my grandchildren and I were planting a garden. I wanted them to experience the same kind of beans their great grandma and great great grandma had in their garden so I called Tri State to order a pound of beans. The lady that worked there went out of her way to make sure they were packaged and even called to see if I got them. We planted the beans and had great fun picking them and preparing them for dinner.

Here's a photo of those beans. They are called half runners and are the best tasting beans on earth. I could eat a whole pot full by my self.

If you're in Mountain City, drive by the Tri State. I am sure they will be glad to see you.

That's it for today.

No Foolin'

Well, The weatherman done it again. He predicted sunny temps and highs in the fifties. I woke up to 2 inches of snow yesterday and 4 inches today. Will this winter ever come to an end?? I thought spring started weeks ago.


I only remember raising broom corn one time but I do remember the broom that was made from that broom corn. The broom corn was planted on the edge of the cornfield. Broom corn didn't grow as tall as the regular corn and it had this reddish brown pod looking thing on the top. We treated it like the regular corn. It was hung on a wall in the smokehouse until it dried and was ready to make the broom. I do remember when they went to make the broom they took the broom apart and used the same handle for the broom. It was woven together with twine string. I don't remember the making of the broom but we used that broom for a long time. We finally bought a store bought broom but we continued to use the old one for sweeping and scrubbing the porch so we wouldnt get the new broom dirty.

That's it for today.