Sitting on Grandma Evelyn's front porch, June/July in Canadian, TX, heat and humidity,
sweat running down your back puddling in your shorts, and your thumbs rubbed raw by
the end of the second bushel. Good times.
I really miss Grandma Evelyn.
Shelling peas and stringing beans was always a love/hate relationship. Naturally, I miss both my grannies with whom I shared much "garden" work through the years. Now, I plant beans to torture my offspring.
ReplyDeleteBeen there MANY times. Hated it back then, love it today.
ReplyDeleteWe only got to visit the Grandparents once a year because of the distance (Albuquerque to Arkansas). I remember driving back home with bushels of purple hull peas to keep each kid occupied during the drive. After several hours of the license plate game and several renditions of "Hundred bottles of beer on the wall" we actually like shelling peas. I still prefer purple hull peas and cornbread to steak on a cold winters day.
ReplyDeleteMSG Grumpy
Visits to the Maternal Grandparents farm every summer was an epic adventure. First it took two and half days driving from Northeastern Pennsylvania to get to the Farm in Arkansas. Originally in the 1940s we went by train, but in the early '50s we had a car and the freedom to plan our own route.
ReplyDeleteShelling peas, helping gather eggs, messing around the farm, playing in the barn with the cousins and generally having one hell of a great time.
Those days are gone forever, but not forgotten.
shelling peas was a talent required of all country kids...when I was 14,in addition to pea shelling, my dad got up from the pasture a half holstein cow for me to milk. "why are we doing this?" I asked, since milk in plastic jugs was readily available. " It's something you need to know how to do" was the imperative answer. I noticed that fresh butter and more frequent homemade ice cream were nice rewards for the twice daily ritual.
ReplyDeletevaquero viejo
Oh! And I forgot corn shucking and the joys of throwing silk worms to the birds that gathered in the pecan trees eagerly waiting.
ReplyDeleteMy parents were children of the Depression, so a gigantic-ass garden was de rigueur. I learned about purple-hull peas and green beans from this. To this day, I won't even buy that shit in cans nor even it at gunpoint.
ReplyDelete"...nor even EAT it at gunpoint."
ReplyDeleteSigh.
“And when you finish those peas, there are tomatoes to pick, Swiss chard and okra to cut.” Then after dinner we all get to get a hoe out and weed the garden before bed. Rinse and repeat the next day.
ReplyDeleteRickn8or - mine is breaded, fried okra and cantaloupe.
I can eat my weight in breaded fried okra, but only because the other half was pickled instead of cut.
DeleteOh, I like my okra too, but I'll pick it all day before I'll shell peas for ten minutes.
ReplyDeleteLots of time as a kid spent shucking peas and snapping ends off green beans. To this day the only way I like peas is straight from the pod. For me most vegetables are ruined by cooking them.
ReplyDeleteWe had a dog the used to love eating a ear of corn fresh from the garden. He'd hold it done with one paw over the other and strip the cob clean.