Sweet Spring

                     This effusively flowering Camellia is at the end of our porch.  The picture was taken in mid-March!

                    

                                        

Sweet Spring

I close the door and lock the latch

To walk the walk four blocks and back.

I breathe in deep, and smell the sweet;

The scent and sight of flowers meet.

Yellow, purple, pink and white

Fill my senses with delight!

Fingertips of soft mint green

Grace the trees in lovely scene.

Bird songs fill my ear with sound;

Squirrels cavort along the ground.

Lawns are manicured with care;

My face is kissed by sun-warmed air.

Winter's chill and blahs give way

To warbles, tweets, and sun-filled day!

                                    By Elaine Beachy

                                 March 30, 2012

Copyright © 2012 Elaine Beachy

If Walls Could Talk, Part Ten: A Beau-quet of love

If walls could talk, the kitchen, dining room, and living room walls of our farmhouse could tell you about young love too.  Mine, that is. 

When I was seventeen, my heart became enamored at Salisbury Elk-Lick High School with a tall, black-haired, dark-eyed young man.  As I carried my tray from the high school cafeteria back to the kitchen one day, I happened to glance up at the bleachers.  My eyes met this young man's and I felt my heart leap.  I quickly looked away.

Later I inquired of him to my friend Jenny.  She said his name was David, he had a twin brother Jonathan and his family lived on a farm next to their house.  So as not to appear too forward, I asked her if she'd invite both David and Jonathan to our next youth group meeting at Sam and Elizabeth Yoder's home in Meyersdale.  Jenny grinned at me with a knowing look and pointedly asked me: "Okay Elaine, which one are you sweet on?  Dave or Jonathan?"  I was chagrined and kept silent.  She laughed and continued, "Oh, it's Dave, I know it, right?"  When I didn't answer and avoided her gaze, she laughed again merrily and said she'd invite them. 

She did -- they both came -- and I was informed by my naughty friend that she told Dave I liked him.  I was so embarrassed!  He sat beside me at the youth event and I was so self-conscious.  At high school on Monday, he met me at the door and carried my books down the hall for me as students looked on.  I'm sure I blushed the whole way to home room!  And so began my beau-quet of love.

Dave took me to my church (First Mennonite Church in Meyersdale) Sunday evenings, and then bring me home where'd we continue our date.  The kitchen walls watched my beau and me as my mother served Sunday night snacks of fudge marble cake, popcorn, ice cream, hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls or other delicacies. 

The living room walls could tell you that we played music records such as "Sons of the Pioneers", the melodious whistling of Ralph Pratt's "The Birds Sing His Praise", and records from my dad's cowboy collection.  We looked at photo albums and talked.  Sometimes I'd play my accordian. 

The dining room walls sometimes saw us putting puzzles together.  [Those walls weren't the only ones watching us!]  Some of my brothers delighted in hanging around and pestering us when we wanted to be alone.  Mom and Dad made them go to bed.  Yay!

Those walls watched as my beloved Dave gave me a "good-night" hug before he exited the dining room door around 10:30 to walk across the large front porch, down the steps, and out the sidewalk to his car.  He didn't give me a kiss until we'd dated six months, and the kiss was on my forehead.  Dave told me later that when I kissed him back on the cheek he floated across the porch, out to his car, and the whole way home! :o)

Oh the stories our old farmhouse walls could tell!

Copyright © 2012 Elaine Beachy

If Walls Could Talk, Part Nine: Music at Valley Brook Farm

Something very special stood against one wall of our tongue-in-groove-boards-painted-light-green living room.  It was an exciting day when Daddy brought home something I had never even seen before, being raised in a Mennonite church and all. What was it?  A wonderful, magnificent piece of creative art and music called a church pump organ with a hutch on top!  Seems Daddy had been to a church auction where he couldn't pass up a good buy.  (The thought occurs to me now that perhaps he bought it for me to replace Dicky Bird.)  No matter the reason, I'm glad he bought it!

To me, it was a thing of wondrous beauty: dark ornate mahogany wood with a hand-crafted look that sported a lavishly-decorated mirrored hutch on top.  The polished scroll work begged to be touched and admired.  It wasn't disappointed. :o)  In the lower center of the pump organ were two wide foot pedals fastened to ropes that worked the bellows to play the keys. With the organ also came a round swivel stool with glass claw feet and more ornate turned work.  [I did some research online today and discovered our organ and stool was from the 1800's!]

The long row of push-pull knobs and the ivory and black keys fascinated me.  I was also intimidated.  How would I ever make any music come out of it?  I set to work with a church hymnal and learned to play four-part music by ear and loved it.  I used to sing with it too sometimes.

It was around this time that I also learned my dad loved music, and how as an Amish young man he hid an auto-harp in the attic.  Those attic walls could tell you how he used to sneak up there to make music.  I feel a sense of loss that I never heard him play. 

For my sixteenth birthday, Mom and Dad had a special surprise for me.  They gave me my Auntie Fannie's 48-bass Cellini white pearl accordian with pink bellows. Wow!  She had bought it in Oregon where I was born, and my parents bought it from her with the agreement that it stay in the family.  I had heard Auntie play that thing and she could sing and yodel too!  She and Mom used to sing together in Oregon.

I watched how Fannie played the accordian and she gave me some instructions, then I was on my own.  I learned to play by ear (nothing fancy), and after awhile I was singing and playing my accordian at the nursing home in Oakland, MD when our Mennonite youth group ministered there once a month. 

At the close of a busy day on the farm, I enjoyed playing my accordian at the center of our Y-shaped sidewalk as I faced the sunset from our front yard.  I would sing and play "My God and I", "How Great Thou Art", and other peaceful songs.  I loved the song by Jim Reeves, "The Flowers, The Sunset, The Trees", and also liked "Distant Drums".   I'd sing and play those too.

After I was married, I played and sang with the accordian several times at our Women's Aglow meetings in Somerset, PA, and also to lead worship at Indian Lake Christian Center where Dave and I attended church.  I still have the accordian and play it once in a great while, but I'm rusty.  I've written a few songs for my ears only. :o)  Years ago I also bought an electric OmniChord in lieu of an autoharp.  But it all started with music at Valley Brook Farm.  Thank you, Mom, and even though he went to Heaven in April of 2003, I say "thank-you, Daddy"!

Copyright © 2012 Elaine Beachy

If Walls Could Talk, Part Eight: Dicky Bird

If our dining room walls in the farmhouse could talk, they could tell you about the only pet I had that I considered mine.  How I came to have him is an unusual story.

One Sunday afternoon my brothers and I were sitting on our front lawn near the tall twin pine trees, enjoying the beautiful day and eating popcorn.  Suddenly, I was mightily startled as a small bird flew onto my shoulder and seemed to beg for some popcorn.  My startled reaction soon gave way to delight as I saw a beautiful blue parakeet perched, unafraid, on my shoulder!  I was able to grasp him gently with my right hand and carry him into the house, calling out for Mom and Dad to come see what I had.

Don't you know, they found a pale yellow bird cage with a stand in the attic of that old farmhouse, and we put Dicky Bird inside.  That's what I named him, because it just seemed to fit.  We gave him water, but I'm not sure what we fed him until we could buy some parakeet food.  A likely scenario would be that Grandma Ollie gave us some because she already had a parakeet.

I loved my little pet and was enamored with him, especially because of the way he had chosen me to perch upon when he flew in from parts unknown.  Mom and Dad said we had to put a notice in the Meyersdale paper asking if anyone had lost a parakeet, and they included our address and phone number.  (I remember part of that phone number on the farm: it was MEcury 634-???. We always dialed the "ME" and then the phone number of the one we were calling in the area. I guess the phone company assigned words back then instead of having all digits like we do now.)

Oh how I hoped nobody would call and claim my Dicky Bird!  Visitors and dinner guests would exclaim over him, and he always gave me a good story to tell -- how he just miraculously appeared and flew onto my shoulder.  That always "wowed" them. : o)   Miraculously, nobody ever claimed him!

He was such a good bird, and he was mine.  I considered him a little love token from Heaven just for me, kind of like when the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus's shoulder at His baptism. I know it must have been a childish idea, but remembering that thought touches a special place in my heart. Thank-you, Jesus, for Dicky Bird.

My joy turned to sorrow one morning that winter when I came downstairs and found Dicky Bird dead in his pale yellow cage.  Mom said it was positioned too close to the radiator.  Poor Dicky Bird.  I don't remember where we buried him.  The blue painted board dining room walls cried too.

Copyright © 2012 Elaine Beachy

If Walls Could Talk, Part Seven: That Special Sunday Morning

Our family of seven lived in my grandfather Claude Yoder's large farmhouse outside Meyersdale, Pennsylvania on the road between Summit Mills (a small mining town outside the town of Meyersdale) and Mountain View Mennonite Church near Salisbury, Pennsylvania.  My grandparents, Claude and Olive (Tice) Yoder, were my dad's parents.  They had built a new "dawdi" house a short distance up a lane from the farmhouse. 

Claude named the beautiful farm with rolling, spacious fields, two white barns at right angles to one another and two tall silos, "Valley Brook Farm".  The lettered sign was proudly displayed across the top of the garage next to the milk house.  There was also an abandoned chicken house my dad used at one time for sheep, a shop, a machine shed and a corn crib.  We had about forty cows we milked twice a day.  It was this setting that was my mental image when writing "Biff and Becka's Springtime Adventures".  [The book is very close to being released.]

I loved the delightful babbling creek running from the neighboring farm across a wide field near the road along our property line, under our lane and through the woods situated down over a hill from our house.  More than once on a Sunday afternoon I made my way carefully down over the steep hill until I reached the bottom where the creek was running.  I loved to sit on the bank of the rippling brook beneath the regal Quaking Aspen tree that I deemed the centerpiece of my spot of "heaven". 

Sometimes I wanted more privacy, as if God was drawing me aside deeper into the woods where no one could see me and I'd sit on a log and just talk to Him.  Those times seemed so special and I remember one distinct occasion my heart was so full of love and thanksgivng to Jesus that I began to speak strange-sounding words that seemed to me were some Indian language.  I could tell it was something special, but I kept it to myself.  Instead of talking about it, I went back to the house, and wrote them as best I could on thin wooden 1 x 3 tiles and slipped them into a small wooden box.  Every once in a while I'd take them out of the box and wonder what it meant as I read them.  I don't know what became of them, but the experience stayed with me.   

I sensed God's presence because of what had happened some time earlier one special Sunay morning.

The living room walls could tell you of that special Sunday morning when I was eleven years old.  I was ready for church earlier than the rest of my family, and always enjoyed listening to "The Radio Kids Bible Class" with J. C. Brumfield.  I was by myself, and when the announcer gave the invitation at the end of the broadcast for receiving Jesus, I bowed my heart before the Lord and said "Yes".  I didn't tell anyone.

In August of that year, the First Mennonite Church in Meyersdale where we attended had revival meetings, and it was at the close of one of those services that I stood, weeping, and publicly made known my decision to follow Jesus. 

My grandparents attended the Mountain View Amish-Mennonite church as it was called at that time, so they didn't know anything about my decision.  But I remember how surprised I was when Ollie walked down the lane with me and asked, "You've become a Christian, haven't you?"  I said I had, and asked her how she could tell.  She smiled and quietly replied, "I could just tell."  : o)  I was amazed and wondered what she saw that was different about me.  A few weeks later I was baptized by "the pouring method" of our Anabaptist forefathers as I knelt in front of the church. 

If those blue painted board living room walls could talk, I think they would rejoice with me for that most important special Sunday of my life.  I know the angels in Heaven did.

Copyright © 2012 Elaine Beachy

If Walls Could Talk, Part Six: Big Breakfasts and More

If our spacious farmhouse kitchen with painted yellow tongue-in-groove walls had eyes, they may raise a quizzical eyebrow or two if they could see what McDonalds calls a "Big Breakfast" today compared to what we called a "big breakfast" on the farm.  And really, we didn't think it strange to see the breakfast table laden with a heaping bowl of dutch-fried potatoes, eggs, sausage, applesauce and toast, and sometimes pancakes with maple syrup, too.  Then we finished the meal with a bowl of cereal.  Sometimes we'd have otameal cooked with raisins.  Life on the farm was physically demanding, so our breakfasts were hearty. 

What I wouldn't give to once again have the Wheat Shreds cereal we bought from our local Agway Feed Store in Meyersdale!  Oh YUM!  Much of the cereal we ate was made by Mom.  She used to make and sell Grape-Nuts, and could produce one hundred pounds per day to sell!  I remember the large baking sheets of whole wheat batter baked up nice and brown, cut into strips, cooled, put through a coarse grinder and then dried. 

My dad fixed up an old cook stove in our wash house on the farm where Mom set up her operation, and he even invented a drum drier to turn by hand over the top of the hot cook stove to dry the ground morsels.  Then she bagged and sold the cereal by the pound.  One lady, Mom said, always came and bought twenty pounds at one time!

The recipe Mom used came from my Aunt Frieda, Uncle Henry's wife, and in case you're interested in trying it yourself, here's the recipe:

8 pints graham flour  (16 cups)
3 teaspoons salt
4 teaspoons soda
2 1/2 pints brown sugar (5 cups)
3 pints buttermilk or sour milk (6 cups)

Mix all together and spread on greased baking sheets and bake at 350 degrees until firm.  Cut in strips and put back in oven to dry out before grinding.  Cool.  Put through a grinder using a coarse blade, then dry and toast the cereal in the oven till dry and light golden brown.  Stir frequently.  Store in air-tight bags or containers.  (Note:  you may want to reduce the recipe to only make 1/4 of it.)

Applesauce was eaten with just about every meal.  Since most of the hard work was done during the morning and mid-day hours, meals were heaviest then.  The noon meal was called dinner, and the evening meal called supper which usually consisted of a soup, side dish, and some bread in winter.  Many a summertime supper was a cold banana or strawberry "soup" made with the cut-up fruit, sugar, milk, and broken bits of bread.  Mom would usually have some cold sliced canned hamburger and maybe a wedge of cabbage or lettuce and cheese with it.  We had our own canned hamburger from our cows processed for us by Yoder's Locker Plant in Grantsville, MD.  Round steak and roasts were commonplace; hotdogs were a luxury!

We grew most of our food ourselves, and sold strawberries and sweet corn.  Potatoes were dug, cabbages gathered and Northern Spy apples picked from our orchard and the produce stored in the "porch cellar" where it was cold all winter.  We could eat fresh things until Spring.  We ate lettuce from the garden all summer long, and of course we had fresh milk from the bulk tank in the milk house.  We didn't have chickens, however, but bought our eggs from a neighboring Amish farmer.

Sundays we often had company for dinner (our noon meal), and I can still see how Mom and I set the table, and how she fixed a roaster full of round steak that would roast in the oven during church.  I learned from Mom to cook for a crowd, how to time food preparation so that each dish would be ready to be brought to the table at the same time.  It takes practice and a coordinated effort, and I consider it a skill she did extremely well.  I'm glad for all she taught me.  My mother is truly a "Proverbs 31" woman: a virtuous woman whose price is far above rubies!

We didnt waste anything, but made good use of leftovers.  For example, when we had a few servings of mashed potatoes and corn left that wasn't enough for another meal for our family, Mom would beat 3 eggs, add some chopped onion, the mashed potatoes and corn along with a little bit of flour.  Then she'd drop about 1/4 cup of the mixture into a skillet with a few tablespoons of oil over medium heat and turn those leftovers into delicious potato patties, browned on both sides.  I can still taste them, and once in a great while I get to make them today.

Yes, if those kitchen walls could talk now, they'd have a lot to say.  Except you probably couldn't understand a word: they would say it in the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect of German, because that's what we mostly spoke at home.  I wonder if those walls miss us.  I miss them.

Copyright © 2012 Elaine Beachy

If Walls Could Talk, Part Five: Wash Day

If white-washed block cellar walls could talk, they could tell of little mountains of laundry separated by color that dotted the concrete basement floor every Monday.  Some mountains were white, some were dark, and some were pretty with flowers and prints.  In the center of the little mountains stood an electric (cord and plug) white wringer washing machine and a rinse tub set on supports.  The washer was filled with clean, hot water and soap added.  My grandmother used homemade lye soap, but I think Mom used Tide.  The rinse tub was filled with warm water and fabric softener added.

The piles of white sheets and pillowcases were washed first.  When one pile of whites was done washing, I swung the wringer into place and pushed the lever to activate the rollers.  Next, I lifted a sheet by a corner and fed it through the rollers that squeezed the water out of it back into the washing machine.  I could stop the wringer too while I adjusted the sheet to feed it smoothly through the rollers.  The sheet fed into the rinse tub, from which I would run it through the wringer again and into a waiting laundry basket.  It was a long and laborious task.

When the first load of sheets was done, a second load was put into the washer, while I carried the first load to the long wash line in back of the house.  There, I carefully folded the sheets in half by matching the bottom and top edges and pinned them to the line with wooden clothes pins.  By the time I got back to the cellar, load two was done washing.  It was an all-day process to get all the mountains off the cellar floor.  We didn't have a dryer, so laundry was hung to freeze-dry outside in the cold weather too.  Chapped hands and rosy cheeks were common. :o)

If those cellar walls could talk, they could tell you of the pants stretchers we inserted into the menfolks' work pants before hanging on the line.  What wonderful inventions those were!  It saved lots of ironing, and the guys liked the nice sharp crease in their clean cotton work pants.  The men's pants and socks were always the last thing washed, because they made the wash water the dirtiest.  Yes, one washing machine full of water, adding extra soap now and then, washed all the clothes for our family.  When the laundry was done, I'd unhook the drain hose from the washer and the water would run across the floor and down a drain in the corner of the cellar.

As soon as the sheets were dry, I'd take them off the line and fold them carefully, breathing in the fresh scent of clean linens dried in the fresh air and sunshine.  The space made room for the rest of the laundry to be hung up to dry, including rows of individually hung underwear for a family of seven, bath towels, wash cloths, hand towels and tea towels.

Since clothes were cotton back then, Tuesdays were spent ironing.  Mom taught me to iron Sunday shirts when I was eleven years old.  We dampened the clothes before ironing so all the wrinkles would iron out and sprayed starch on the collars and cuffs. 

Is anyone besides me thankful for the automatic washers and dryers we enjoy today?  I frequently thank God for my washer and dryer -- even though my washer, only 8 years old, has been rusty around the top for a couple of years.  They just don't make 'em like they used to!

Sometimes I miss the satisfaction of seeing sheets and towels flapping in the breeze and the smell of clean laundry dried outdoors.  But I'll never miss those Japanese beetles that also found our fresh laundry attractive! : o)

Copyright © 2012 Elaine Beachy

If Walls Could Talk, Part Four: Fruits and Vegetables

The enclosed back porch of the big Valley Brook Farm house could tell you a thing or two.  Besides stashing rows of barn boots, a broom and mop, it could tell you of warm summer days when it held bushel baskets full of Summer Rambo apples, ripe Sun High peaches, Bartlett pears, buckets and baskets of green beans, tomatoes, corn, red beets and cucumbers from the garden, waiting to be "put up".  That term meant either canning or freezing the fruits and vegetables. 

If walls could talk, they would tell you of the big copper water bath canner on Mom's stove, the Kerr lids and Mason glass jars and gold rings that would tighten the lids to seal the food.  Those walls could tell you how Grandma Ollie, my aunts Esther and Elsie (sometimes), and Mom and I would sit at the kitchen table with a large granite pan filled with apples we'd cut and core, slice through a few times, and slide into another large pan filled with slightly salted water to keep them from turning brown.

Many hands make light work.  Soon the pan in the middle of the table was filled with cut apples waiting to be cooked.  Mom scooped them out with her hands and put them into a big kettle with some water to cook to a soft consistency.  We had a large food mill with a crank handle and large hopper on top.  Mom fastened this to the side of the table and put another large pan under the chute to catch the applesauce when it was "worked through", as we termed it.  She watched the cooking apples closely, and as soon as they were soft, she carried the steaming kettle from the stove and set it on a hot pad on the table near the food mill.  With a large dipper, she ladled the hot apples into the food mill; I often turned the crank.  I can still see the steaming applesauce running down the chute into the waiting granite pan, and smell the wonderful smell of freshly cooked apples! 

When the pan was full of sauce, Mom would add sugar to taste.  After that we'd ladle it into glass quart jars.  To seal the jar, we first heated the Kerr lids in a small saucepan of water to soften the rubber part, wipe the top of the jars clean, set a Kerr lid one at a time on each jar, and screw on a gold tightening ring.  Next the jars were put into the copper canner (there was a wooden rack in the bottom to keep the jars from sitting directly on the botton).  Enough water was added to bring the level up to the neck of the jars.  (Maybe that's where the saying, "Up to my neck in  hot water" comes from.)  :o) This process is called a water bath, and the water had to come to a rolling boil, after which the heat was turned off and the jars sat in the hot water for twenty minutes.  Mom used a jar lifter to carefully lift each jar out and place them on an old tablecloth folded in quarters for thickness, and left to cool away from air drafts.  Those kitchen walls could tell you of the satisfactory sounds of lids snapping as each one sealed.

Golden sweet peaches and juicy white pears were carefully peeled and cut, then packed, cut side down all around the inside of the jar so it would look pretty.  We made a syrup of water and sugar to pour over the fruit before sealing and putting them in the water bath for twenty minutes like the applesauce.

We used the same process for making tomato juice, except we just washed and cut up the tomatoes right into kettles they would be cooked in and added a little water.  We made lots of tomato juice.   We made red beet and cucumber pickles by hot water bath method as well.  We canned chunk tomatoes open kettle, which meant that tomatoes boiling in a kettle were quickly ladled into waiting jars and sealed by turning the lids tightly and setting them aside to cool.  That works for tomato juice too.

Green beans were washed, snipped and packed tightly into jars; one teaspoon salt went into each jar, then it was filled with water and lids screwed on as for the applesauce.  Three hours after coming to a boil, the green beans were done and lifted from the copper water bath canner and set out to cool.  Sometimes we used the pressure canner for the green beans to save time, but I was always a bit leery of that piece of kitchen equipment.  One had to be very careful.

Corn from our "truck patch" was harvested early in the morning, husked immediately, cooked, cooled in large tubs of ice water, then cut off and cobs scraped clean into large granite pans.  We froze this corn in quart plastic boxes and took it to Yoder's Locker Plant in Grantsville, MD, where my parents rented a freezer locker.  We didn't have a freezer in our home.  I can still taste that superb Iochief corn; I have not found any corn to compare to it!

And how could I forget the large quantity of vegetable soup we made at end of summer?  I can still see the rows of vegetable soup on the large shelves in our basement, along with all the fruits of our labors from the summer: rows and rows of colorful fruits and vegetables that would feed hungry mouths come winter.

With the kitchen window open to let in cooling breezes, we gave many a story to those kitchen walls as the womenfolk in my family worked and bonded together with love and good will.

Now, with a sad feeling in the pit of my stomach and tears filling my eyes, I know I shall never have those days again.  But the memories of those days are etched on the walls of my heart forever!

Copyright © 2012 Elaine Beachy