offering for Poetics Tuesday. I chose to take
him literally. I hope my poet friends do not
tire of hearing my remember-whens!
Here’s another.
Submitted to dVerse Poetics Tuesday
May, 2017
A stone’s throw from the back door of my childhood home was what we called “the cave”. Actually, it was an underground storm cellar. Many of the farm homes had one for refuge in event of a tornado, which occurred on occasion in our area. My mother was an inventive soul, however, and turned our “cave” into her personal winter storage area. She built long shelves along one side on which she arranged the food she canned from her extensive garden … green beans, peas, corn, tomatoes, apple butter, jellies, jams, peaches, apples, pickles, and beets. On the other wall, she built bins for the root vegetables … potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, and carrots. Unexpected company for dinner merely required a trip to “the cave”, and a typical farm meal would be forthcoming. Guests were usually sent home with a jar or two of her prized jelly. My mother was a woman of many talents … a hard act to follow!
**************
A delightful stroll down memory lane Bev. Your mum sounds like a keeper. Nowt beats a good nosh.
ReplyDeleteWe had a similar cellar, set off from the farmhouse, built out of cement blocks with earth against the outside walls like the one in your picture although it did not go as deep because the water table was high. We even had cause to use it for storms although it was mainly for storing canned goods and root crops like yours was.
ReplyDeleteI think our backgrounds are rather similar, Frank. Strangely (and thankfully), we never had occasion to use our storm cellar for refuge from a tornado ... but mother did leave room for us, if necessary!
DeleteVery fun cave memories!
ReplyDeleteGood memories...and some yummy ones.
ReplyDeleteI NEVER tire of your "remember whens". I love them. I lived in one place that had a root cellar and another that had a "cold room" for just such purposes. The root cellar had an ice box. A REAL ice box, chilled with a block of ice. I hated going in to get things, it was so dark and dank.Your mom's sounds much nicer.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing these...
ReplyDeleteOh I do have a cellar in the basement.. a place for my preserves, for wine and such. This is excellent to have, and a great memory
ReplyDeleteAn interesting anecdote, Bev. My foster mother had a cellar in the house like that, full of jars of preserves, pickles. Rumtopf, and sometiems washing!
ReplyDeletelove the happy nostalgia in this piece, Beverly! :)
ReplyDeleteI love this view of the farm woman's treasure trove. The first home we owned was a farm home (nearest house was more than a mile away) and we always had a huge garden. It was there I learned to can...and where we bought our first freezer and bought a side of beef to fill it. Plus apple pies, endless loaves of zucchini bread :) And I canned stewed tomatoes and my own ketchup! Also pickled beets and plain beets to later make Harvard Beets from; and apple sauce, pickles, green beans, okra. So many things. The very first thing I canned was stewed tomatoes (you use a water bath canner for that because of the acidity rather than the pressure cooker kind) and I had my first 6 bottles so proudly lined up on our shelf...went outside and realized our German Shephard dog had just had a run in with a skunk!!! The best way to get rid of that smell is to bathe the dog in....stewed tomatoes!!! All of my hard work went into Toby :)
ReplyDeleteAh.....thanks for the memories! :) I enjoyed reading this VERY much!
So happy to have triggered pleasant memories for you, Lillian. Thank you for your kind comment.
DeleteBrings back memories! We had a cave/root cellar on the acreage where I grew up. By then, it was not used for anything, but my sister and I would scare ourselves by going down into it.
ReplyDelete