Ginger's Memoirs - The Stinky Hay

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One summer, Dad was out in the barn, cleaning out old hay from the upper level, tossing it into the wagon below to be carted off somewhere more useful.  He’d dig his pitchfork into the hay and toss it over his shoulder and out the doors to land neatly in the wagon with the waiting horse team.  It was calm and quiet.  Just the “shick...schick...schick...” of the hay being picked up with the pitchfork.  Suddenly, his pitchfork started to jump and shake in his hands of it’s own accord!  Dad yelled and threw the fork away from himself into the piles of hay in the barn.  As the fork went flying across the barn, a skunk fell out from between the tines!  Dad wasted no time and jumped out the door and into the wagon below, startling the team who decided they were leaving too.  After dad regained control of the horses, he turned back to look at the barn where he saw the skunk peering out the barn door watching the excitement he had caused.

Ginger's Memoirs - The Raspberry Thief

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Every year, Mom and I would make delicious red raspberry jams and preserves to enjoy all winter long.  We had grown two of the best thirty foot rows of raspberry bushes just for that purpose.  There was one particular year that was looking like a bumper crop.  The morning we went out to pick our berries, there wasn’t a single ripe berry on a single branch.  The whole patch was picked clean!  A few days later, as more berries began to ripen to perfection, we found the culprit!  Our collie-shepherd farm dog had discovered the perfect way to curl his lips and use his teeth to gently pick each ripe raspberry.  We never thought we would have to fence out the dog more than the birds from our berry patch.  Every summer after that we had the most forlorn looking dog sitting outside the new raspberry fence.

Ginger's Memoirs - The Geese

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My folks were new to farming but wanted to raise geese. So, they ordered them and Mom and I picked them up at the Eldridge Post Office in a three foot by three foot, five inch tall box. We took them home and put them in a pen in our summer kitchen. After a couple of weeks, Mom and I decided to let them swim in the two foot deep horse trough. They loved it! They paddled around, bobbing their heads. Everything was great! We decided to run into town (about 20 minutes away) and leave the goslings to play. What we didn’t realize is that goslings get their waterproofing from their mother. Since they did not have a mother goose, we returned to find 23 little heads and beaks just barely floating above the water and little feet going like crazy to keep themselves afloat! We spent the rest of the afternoon drying off and warming up drenched goslings under a heat lamp and keeping them moving. We were lucky and saved all twenty three goslings.

Ginger's Memoirs

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For YEARS Jason’s family have been trying to get Ginger to write down all the different stories she tells us about her life growing up on a farm in Illinois in the 1940s and 50s. Sneaky little me has found a way and talked her into contributing to the newsletter each week! Lucky You! Presenting…

Ginger's Memoirs

In what you could call a series, we will share short stories from Ginger of her life growing up on her parents' farm.  You can tune in every week (most weeks) or you can search the blog posts for "Ginger's Memoirs".

If you would like to hear Ginger tell the story, come visit us at Markets, she is there most of the time.  Reading the stories are great but hearing Ginger tell it is even better!  (hmm... do I hear folks want videos of these stories? hmmm...)