We grew up in Miami and some summers, my brother and I went upstate where our great grand parents lived on a farm.... everyone in the family called them Momma and Poppa.
Poppa built their log cabin many years ago, even before my grandmother was born... it was the same house in which I was born. Momma was a midwife and she delivered me. I know only that I was born after dark... before midnight... but not the exact time or even the approximate hour. Clocks were a luxury back then. The time was estimated by the location of the sun and moon in the sky... what time they got up in the morning, what time they had meals and what time they went to bed, etc.
They also grew tobacco and after picking the tobacco they would "string and hang it' to dry for days before they took it to town to be sold. We asked to help do some of the chores and we were allowed to try some ... but they would n0t let us touch the tobacco... 'because we were kids' .
On Saturdays they went into town where Momma would sell eggs, veggies and fruits from her garden. Their transportation was a wagon pulled by a big Oxen whose name was Jumbo.
On Sundays we rode to church in town in the same wagon. I remember shining my black patent leather shoes for church with a piece of leftover biscuit. LOL Because we would be gone most of the day, we took our lunches in buckets that looked like the ones that paints come in.
We had cousins who were close to our ages, who lived with our GG parents year round. Late afternoons we went with the cousins when they went out in the woods to find and bring the cows home to the corral and the pigs to their pen. The pigs were fed with slop from the kitchen. The chickens ran around in the yard during the day and were put in the coop at night. The coop was made of wooden slats on the sides and a roof to protect them from the elements and other animals who would eat them if they could get to them. Every morning we'd go into the coop and remove the eggs that were not being sat on by a hen. My uncle or Poppa would go out every morning and milk the cows before letting them out of the corral for the day.
I saw my uncle kill a big snake in the grape arbor. I hated to go to the outhouse after that incident because it was a bit away from the house and in the direction of the grape arbor. The toilet paper was old Sears Roebuck or similar catalogs.
When Momma decided we'd have chicken for dinner she would catch one of them as they ran around the yard. She grabbed the chicken by the neck and swung the chicken round and round until it's neck broke. Then she took it to the kitchen to prepare it for dinner. Sometimes she let us pluck it [pull off the feathers]. There was no running water except a small pump in the kitchen. There was a 'wood' stove [the fuel was pieces of wood]. Water for cooking was heated and food was cooked in and on the stove.
I remember making butter. Momma put milk in a very large jar that I'd put on my knees and rock it back and forth until the jar was half filled with butter. We made ice cream in large wooden tub... aka churn... that contained salt, ice and the metal tub that contained the ingredients for the ice cream.
We heated water for our a baths on a big black pot in the yard, we took the hot water in a bucket inside and poured it into a big tin tub in which we bathed.
When the time came to go home, we were ready... because we were tired from all the work we had done.
