My grandpa was born in 1912 and reached adulthood during the great depression. It taught him a lot I'm sure, because he learned how to feed a large family on a limited income. That family often included a guest or two at the kitchen table, but there was always room for them. By the seventies, most of his sons and daughters now had homes and families of their own, but he still lived as though he had an army to feed. In a way, I guess he did. With dozens and dozens of grandchildren, weekend meals were always large.
He lived just three blocks from my house. His property was just outside the city limits. Even though it was an average neighborhood for any small town, it made for an interesting situation. He had two vacant lots on either side of his house. He kept three good sized gardens on the two lots. He had a chicken coop in the back yard and a small pen where he kept rabbits or once in a while a lone pig. I guess you could say I lived a hop, skip, and a jump from a mini-farm. During the summer months, I pretty much spent most of my day at grandpa's house.
Two of the gardens were planted in green beans, tomatoes, sweet corn, and a variety of other vegetables. One garden was always reserved for potatoes. As grandchildren, my cousins and I were appointed assistant gardeners. Assistant gardener's had several different jobs. We did everything from pulling weeds to picking the crop when it was ready. The picking season started with the tomatoes and green beans. We'd pick the tomatoes and deliver them to Grandma and her assistants to be washed, cooked, and canned. Hundreds of quart jars of stewed tomatoes and tomato juice passed through the kitchen during the summer. Green beans by the bushel basket were washed, snapped, cooked, and canned as well.
The potato harvest however was a onetime event. When it was time to dig potatoes, the troops were called in for a hard day's work. My grandpa, a few of my uncles, my father, or one or two of my older cousins would grab the potato forks and head to the garden. The younger grandchildren were given baskets to carry the potatoes to the root cellar. The forks would break through the loose soil and bring up the larger potatoes that couldn't pass through the tines. Dozens of little hands would sift through the soil and get all of the small potatoes that the fork didn't bring up. Basket after basket of potatoes would be taken to the root cellar and dumped into the potato bin. Even after all of Grandpa's children had moved out, the potatoes still fed many of them all year long. Many of us went shopping at Grandpa's when money was tight.
As for the livestock, we gathered eggs whenever we visited Grandma and Grandpa's house in the morning. A couple of dozen chickens provided the eggs that were needed with a few to spare. Every so often, Grandpa would pick one of the chickens to become Sunday dinner.
Every fall, once the temperature dropped below 50 degrees at night, we'd butcher a hog or two. It was a two day process. We butchered the hog on Saturday and processed and packaged it on Sunday. We'd get up early on Sunday and head to Grandpa's. The hog had been hanging in the garage overnight, and the meat was firm enough for clean knife cuts.
There were three teams that helped process the hog into edible portions. The first team was the meat cutters. They used saws and knives to cut the halves of the hog into ribs, chops, and roasts. The second team wasn't much of a team. It was the grinding team. The grandchildren took turns stuffing all the little pieces of meat that weren't big enough to fry into an old electric grinder that Grandpa had picked up somewhere. Our fingers would get cold, and the next grandchild in line would take over. All in all, that old electric grinder was the slowest part of the process. The meat that was cut up and the meat that was ground up were delivered to the final team: The packagers. The ground meat was seasoned to make sausage, and all of the meat was packaged and labeled. Pork was the largest part of our diets over the long winter.
By the time I had reached my teens, the city limits had reached Grandpa's house. The chickens went away. Grandpa sold off a lot, and the gardens got smaller. Eventually, the gardens went away as well.
Grandpa's been gone for quite a few years now, and we don't have gardens or butcher hogs anymore. I can still feel the tingling fingers from the ice cold meat I stuffed in the old grinder for hours at a time. I can close my eyes and smell the stewed tomatoes and green beans. I think about crawling around through the tomato plants pulling weeds, and my arms itch. Much of my childhood has become fleeting memories, but one thing is certain. The time I spent on Grandpa's mini-farm is burned into my memory forever. They are experiences that I will never forget and skills I will always have if I ever need them again.