DAY 80 - COUNTING DOWN TO THE 50TH

Good Morning, Class of '64

Kitchen Conversation - Rau Emil

If you must sing, do it when
you’re after the cows.
Cows don’t care if you
can’t carry a tune.

Look down when walking
in a cow pasture.

Happiness for a farmer is a
barn roof that doesn’t leak,
a pasture fence that isn’t broken,
and a daylong rain in May.
http://www.grit.com/community/farming-rural-wit-and-wisdom-ze0z1205zsch.aspx#ixzz32H7xPW8p

Another Day with Larry


Memories from the Five Senses
(Part One)

In no particular order, 

here are some things 

that take any farm kid 

back to his roots.

Little Boy Blue - Vickie Wade

My shoe soles sticking to
the kitchen floor when Mom
was canning jam or jelly.

Vintage Canning

 The sweet-greenish smell of

drying or cured hay or fresh hay
in the barn - a smell guaranteed to
send any aging farm kid back
to his childhood.

Haystacks - Unknown

The smell of a barn filled
with sheep or cattle.

Farm Animals in Barn - Thomas Sidney Cooper

The feel of that same barn
on a cold winter morning,
warmed by the animals’ body heat.

Another Barn - Ryan Hayes

The so-very-vivid sunrises and
sunsets we too often took for
granted on that ridge top farm.
Someone always quoted
that old weather saying:

Red sky at night, sailors’ delight;
Red sky in morning, sailors take warning.

It is amazing how often that
weather sign is correct.

The sound and smell of a storm

or thunderstorm approaching.

We could see storms for several

miles in all directions and could

accurately estimate when

they would arrive.

 

Approaching Storm - Grant Wood

The smell in the air and the
sharp clarity of the sky after
a summer thunderstorm.
That was the inspiration
for the great gospel song
How Great Thou Art.

How Great Thou Art
O Lord my God! When I in awesome wonder
Consider all the works Thy hand hath made.
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

Christian hymn based on a Swedish poem
and popularized by George Beverly Shea and
Cliff Barrows during the Billy Graham crusades.
"How Great Thou Art" was ranked second
(after "Amazing Grace") on a list of the
favorite hymns of all time in a survey by
Today's Christian magazine in 2001.
Mormon Tabernacle Choir
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Great_Thou_Art

The sound of raindrops on

the tin roof directly above
my bedroom that sang a
sweet lullaby at night.

RAINSTORM ON A TIN ROOF

The sound of a windstorm
on that same tin roof.
It sounded like the roof was
being ripped from the house.
The first night my brother-in-law
Gerald slept at our house, he
wakened Mason thinking that
the roof was being torn off.

Landscape in Stormy Weather - Vincent Van Gogh

The feel and sound of snow
crunching under foot when
the temperature drops
below 20 degrees.

Old Man and Dog Walking Home - Gordon Bruce

The friendly nicker of Dan,
our work horse, in the barn
or pasture when he first saw
us in the morning.

Belgian Draft Horse - Lee Thomason

Young lambs playing in the pasture.
All young animals play,
but lambs are special.
A large group runs together
like a cavalry charge,
bouncing stiff-legged.
The lambs also love to
play king-of-the-mountain on
any rock or high place
in the pasture.
Lambs Playing King of the Castle

A sow, slowly and carefully lying down
with a large litter of pigs, never crushing
one, and then grunting contentedly after
she has stretched out while her babies
are having their supper.

Sow and Piglets - George Morland

The airplane engine-like sound of a
ruffled grouse taking off from under
your feet. It is so loud, you jump
even when you see the grouse and
are waiting for it to flush.
After take-off, any ruffled grouse
can get behind a tree quicker than
anyone would believe.

Double Flush - John Ruthven

The sight of buzzards
circling in the sky.
That indicates that they

smell or see a dead animal.
The fear is always that it
is a cow or sheep.

Turkey Vultures - Charles Wallis

The smell of decaying flesh.
It is a horrible smell, and one
that brings dread. A decaying
snake seems to be the worst.

Fatal Wound - Kate Knapp

The constant sound of wind 

rustlingthrough the leaves 

and over the ridges.

Wind Through the Trees

The look, sounds, and smell of the 

woods on an early October morning. 

The fall foliage was amazing,

 better than what most people 

drive miles to see.

The air was brisk and clear with a 

faint odor of dying and falling leaves. 

The constant rustle of the dry leaves in 

the breeze and the sound of nuts and 

leaves falling while the squirrels are 

gathering their winter food.

The squirrels, along with the crows, are 

nature’s look-outs in the woods. When 

they hear or see a person, they tell every

 animal within hearing distance. Then the 

other animals pass it on until every critter in the 

woods for hundreds of yards knows you are there.

Autumn Landscape - Robert Wood

The smell of coffee perking and
salt-cured ham frying stealing into
my bedroom waking me each morning.
My getting-up problems didn’t come from
being asleep; I was always awake early.
I just didn’t want to get up.

  

The Percolator Twist Song

Song based on the jingle in the
Maxwell House coffee TV commercials.
Originally called "Percolator"
but the producer changed it to
indicate it was a song to twist to.
Peaked at No. 10 and stayed
in the Top 100 for 15 weeks.
http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=1967
Billy Joe and the Checkmates - 1962

No machine, no piece of technology 

can replace the eye of the farmer in
caring for animals,
producing crops,
or appreciating the land.

The history of the land is etched in
the faces of the farmers who till it.

Children growing up on a family
farm know where their food comes
from andtake pride in the fact that
they helped produce it.
http://www.grit.com/community/farming-rural-wit-and-wisdom-ze0z1205zsch.aspx#ixzz32HDMvVAO

Country Kitchen - James Lumbers