Thanks, all, for the kind words.
Penny dictates:
We did get to Quiet Valley.
http://www.quietvalley.org/about/links.htm
http://www.quietvalley.org/ourfarm/ourfarm.htm
I learned lots of things. I will tell you some of them.
Everybody knows that roosters crow to remind the sun to get out of bed, but did you know that roosters will crow in the middle of a rainy afternoon to tell the clouds to go away.
Pigs will eat anything. Some farmers thought that mean pigs were good lean pigs. Our guide said that a baby cousin of hers fell in the pigpen and was almost all eaten up.
Pigs would rather not be dirty animals. Sometimes when their sty is crowded--or not cleaned on time--they can't help but be dirty.
This is not their fault.
Women and girls wore sunbonnets. Sunbonnets don't just keep the sun out of your face. A lot of farm work is messy and smelly: cooking on open fires and collecting eggs when the hen house isn't cleaned, and digging root vegetables. Sunbonnets are easier to wash than long hair.
Taking baths used to be very complicated. Everyone knows that if you don't have indoor plumbing you have to carry water for a bath. You also have to carry wood to heat the clean water. Then you have to carry the dirty water outside. It is easier to wear a sunbonnet.
Quiet Valley was not a profit making farm. The farmers raised enough food for themselves. In good years there was a little extra meat or vegetables that could be sold or bartered for store-bought goods.
Quiet Valley farmers made shoes and boots for themselves and their families and sometimes for neighbors. A pair of girl's shoes could be swapped for a well-made barrel.
Barrels were very important for keeping things in. If you knocked a barrel apart to make wooden skies out of the slats you would be spanked.
One of the things you make and keep in a barrel is sauerkraut. Sauerkraut has six "esses".
SHRED: When you cut the fresh cabbage in pieces.
SMUSH: You have to pound the layers of cabbage down in the barrel to get rid of the air. Air can make preserved food go bad.
SALT: Sprinkle salt over layers of cabbage. Actually you shred and salt and smush and shred and salt and smush.
SEAL: Put a tight lid on the barrel.
SET: Let the cabbage ferment for at least two weeks.
SERVE: With pork. Not a pig that has eaten a baby.
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I had an immortal adventure last night. There is a house being built next door. It will be a Cape Cod
http://www.ehouseplans.com/cape_cod_house_plans_home/images/34603.jpg
The high windows that stick out are called dormer windows and this house will have three windows in the front and two in the back. The carpenter took me up the ladder and helped me write P-E-N-N-Y on the inside of an outside wall of a dormer in the back.
P-E-N-N-Y will be covered up with dry wall, but my name will be under the drywall forever and ever.
)
