August CupboardScape

 

Happy August 1st everyone!

For me August meant harvest.

For my new followers,

both my grandparents had dairy farms.

I spent my Summer months on both farms.

My parents would drive up

both my sister and I and it

was the best time ever. 

I did not get involved with harvesting

until I was a teen.

My job was to bale hay.

Crops were very important to a farmer.

They needed them to feed their animals.

Both my grandparents grew wheat.

Once the wheat was thrashed 

the rest of the stalks were dried for straw.

Corn was also grown by both.

My paternal grandparents also grew alfalfa.

Another food source for their animals.

Crops were men's work.

My grandmother's had their own jobs.

Reaping the fruits of their gardens.

Canning vegetables, making sauces,

and jarring up jams. 

August was the time I would also help

my grandmothers get out their Winter quilts,

in the process of switching over their

Summer ones for these warmer ones.

Another job of mine was to beat 

those quilts outside on their clotheslines,

to get the dust out.

Those heavy quilts would not

go through their ringer washing machines

at the time.

Mending was a necessity this time of year.

Socks, clothes and quilts.

My maternal grandparents had 80 acres of land.

They did not have a furnace.

Therefore the woodpile needed to be

filled for the Winter months.

My uncles would go in the back 40...

as I called it and chop the wood.

The back 20 acres of land was filled with trees.

It was important to my maternal grandparents

to be able to heat their stove daily.

Gramma cooked, heated her iron and it

was the source of warmth for that

old farmhouse.

My favorite time of the year on my

grandparents farms though

was months before harvest.

I loved when the crop dusting planes 

came to my grandparents farms.

For those not familiar with crop dusting,

it was the preferred method at the time

for applying pesticides and fertilizer.

It was an important part of farming.

The croppers only came in good weather,

with a very low wind to be effective.

These small planes were so cool to me.

They would come down very, very low

and spray the many acres of crops.

Then when they were near the end,

they would come up fast and turn around.

Row by row, up and down.

I was mesmerized at the pilots precision.

Farming was a hard but rewarding life.

I have always said kids need to work

a farm at least once in their life to see

where they get their food from.

It would be an important lesson for them.

Better than learning about what is being

taught now in our schools.

In other news,

mom's body is failing.

Her breathing is getting heavier.

She still knows who I am at the time,

but forgets that any of us had seen her

when we did.

No one visits her she tells me when I ask.

Yesterday evening she got worse.

She now is sweating more profusely,

plus she has a Kennedy ulcer....

which both are more signs she is failing.

The Kennedy ulcer is a skin sore that will

not heal and a sign that death is close.

My mom always had a high tolerance to pain.

Yesterday her pain level for both her stomach

area (where the mass is) and her lower back

(where the ulcer is) were both at a 10.

My brother called the Hospice nurse

and she is going to start providing

pain medication.

We do not have long now.

I will be leaving here shortly to visit her.

It may be my last time.

I did not sleep well last night.

Our wedding anniversary was Monday.

Neither Bob or I remembered. LOL

He remembered Wednesday night.

We laughed because we both forgot.

I wont forget his birthday though.

It is next Tuesday.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

August Blessings To All!

Janice