THE FRONT PORCH

 Memories flood my mind as I sit on the front porch.  Perhaps it is the taste of buttermilk, the smell of cornbread baking in Grandma Minnie's Dutch oven over the fireplace, or the sorghum syrup Granddaddy Bob made each fall from cane.

The family rose before the rooster crowed to tackle the hot, hard, job of stripping blades from cane.  After cutting them down, you put the cane into piles and cut off the seed heads.  Then Granddaddy and the boys loaded the cane on a wagon and hauled it to the mill.  A mule pulled the pole that turned the mill.  Cane was fed into the vertical rollers like a washing machine.  Juice squeezed from the cane and flowed down a spout to the boiler where it was boiled from one vat to another.  You skimmed foam off the top until it came out a nice clear brownish-red color.  Dozens of yellow jackets swarmed and you had to keep them out of the syrup.  Our family made 90 gallons of sorghum syrup.  The labor paid off when you savored the rich, thick, sorghum on hot, buttered biscuits.

Besides making sorghum syrup, Great-Grandpa Dallas Matheson owned 300 acres of land on Shewbird Mountain.  He was a farmer and grew an apple orchard above the frost line.  He raised the black beauty that was so red it looked black.  The Ben Davis was light with small streaks and white inside.  Other apples included the horse apple, hog sweet, red June, striped May, pumpkin apple, queen pippin, pound apple, and others with no names.  Each fall our family took a sled and mule to Shewbird Mountain and hauled apples to the house to store them in the cellar.  Grandma and the girls dried apples on trays outside in the sun.

I ponder the good old days on the front porch. We had no air-conditioners and it was a taste of heaven resting on the porch each evening as a breeze wafted over the valley.  Neighbors would stop for a visit and we enjoyed swapping a few stories as lightning bugs flashed.  Brother Harold and I caught them in Blair canning jars and pretended they were our lanterns. 

Many homes have no front porches now.  Families are missing a wonderful slice of the bygone days.

by:  Brenda Kay Ledford

Reprinted from:  GOOD OLD DAYS, A Poetry and Prose Anthology

                           Published by: Old Mountain Press:  www.OldMountainPress.com

                                  

Book Review: "Christmas in Matheson Cove"

 CHRISTMAS IN MATHESON COVE

by:  Brenda Kay Ledford

Book Review by:  Carroll S. Taylor-poet, author, and playwright

It's Christmas in Matheson Cove, North Carolina, and snow on Shewbird Mountain adds to the excitement of the season.  For Bob and Minnie Ledford's eight children, joyful holiday expectations are running high, but uncertain, in this charming picture book written by author and poet, Brenda Kay Ledford.

The story unfolds on Christmas Eve in 1931 during the Great Depression, when kids hung their stockings and were grateful to receive candy, fruit, and nuts on Christmas morning if they were lucky.  Times were hard, and families celebrated the best way they could.

Bob is disheartened.  His hunting trip in the snow with his dog Old Rover on Shewbird Mountain yields no wild game.  He returns home, hangs his coat on a nail, and tells Minnie that he can't afford presents, not even a stick of peppermint candy.  "I ain't got no money..."

He believes that hanging the children's stockings is a waste of time.  Minnie reminds him, "Money don't matter.  It's our love that makes Christmas."  And she encourages him by saying, "God will provide."

Bob and Minnie hang the children's stockings anyway, hoping for a miracle.  Leave it up to the older Ledford boys to make that surprise miracle happen.

Ledford's book is beautifully illustrated by the artistic design of North Carolina native Doreyl Ammons Cain.  All illustrations in the First Edition are original with vivid colors that Cain created with pastels.  The book's front cover, with snow and evergreen trees, creates a festive scene inviting readers to enter the story.

Ledford includes seemingly small details--like kernels of corn accidentally dropped by the boys along a snowy path--for a reason.  Young cornstalks in the spring will remind Minnie and readers later in the story of how Christmas blessings happen all throughout the year.  The effects of the boys' miracle don't happen just once but continue in unexpected ways.

Ledford is a seventh generation native of Clay County, North Carolina.  Christmas in Matheson Cove describes one holiday her family spent during the Great Depression.  "The parents had no money for presents, but the children figured out a plan to provide gifts for the family."

Ledford reminds readers that acts of love are miracles that show the true meaning of Christmas, and her historical story is one that is certainly worth passing down to future generations.

Christmas in Matheson Cove was published by Catch the Spirit of Appalachia, an imprint of Ammons Communications.  The book is available online at:  sharingspokenstories.com/shop/ols/products/christmas-in-matheson-cove.

INDEPENDENCE DAY (United States)

 

When I grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, we didn't have watermelons all year.  It was a real treat to dive into a plump, juicy, watermelon on the Fourth of July.  Daddy bought one each year at the little country store and put it into the freezer to get nice and cold.

On the Fourth of July, Mama packed a picnic basket with delicious goodies:  a chocolate cake made from scratch, oatmeal cookies, celery (Daddy loved celery), corn-on-the-cob ( we called them roast nears in the mountains), white-runner beans, and of course; hotdogs and buns.

Daddy loaded the giant-sized watermelon in the back of our old black Ford and we headed to the Matheson Cove to Granddaddy and Ma Minnie's house for a cookout under the maple tree.  Daddy sliced the watermelon with a butcher knife and asked Ma Minnie to fetch the salt shaker.  Doctors would have a fit today if they caught folks shaking, shaking, shaking, salt on every piece of watermelon.  Mama declared, "This is the best watermelon we've ever eaten."  We all agreed and wolfed down the other goodies.

We cousins held a seed spitting contest.  Harold (my brother) and I filled our mouths with seeds, lent back and spat as far as we could.  Cousin Bobby had the contest down pat and always spat the seeds clear across the yard.  Grandma Minnie gave the winner of the watermelon spitting contest an extra slice of Mama's rich chocolate cake.

Then we cousins headed down to Hyatt Mill Creek to swim.  The boys swung on a grape vine across the deepest part of the creek and splashed into the ice cold waters.  Harold brought his fishing pole and headed far from the crowd to catch catfish for our supper.  He usually got a bunch and Uncle Ralph fried the fish and hushpuppies over and open fire for our supper.

When the sun set like a ruby over Shewbird Mountain, we called it a day and headed home.  Back then we didn't have fireworks in the mountains, but enjoyed the lightning bugs putting on a night show as we drove home over the winding, dirt road.

I will always remember the Fourth of July celebration our family held deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  A simple celebration filled with the love of family and grateful for our freedom.

by:  Brenda Kay Ledford

Happy Fourth of July!

BLACKBERRY JELLY

                                            My beautiful mother sitting on the front porch.

 BLACKBERRY JELLY

I look in the mirror

and Mother is reflected in me.

I'm more like her every day.

Each morning she rose

as the rooster crowed

and the sun peeked over

Shewbird Mountain like a ruby.

Honeysuckle perfumed the pine grove

as she grabbed a bucket

and headed to the berry patch.

She stretched her body through briars

to pluck the plump fruit,

ran like a racehorse when

a black snake chased her home.

I watched Mother as she stood

over the woodstove making jelly,

sweat ran down her face.

I helped her wash the Ball jars

to preserve the flavors of our farm.

Although she's been gone

for three years from earth,

I feel close to her 

as I flip through her recipes

that she wrote on napkins,

paper bags, and notebook paper.

I can hear her voice telling

me to Clean up the kitchen,

as I use the bowls and utensils,

Don't waste the ingredients,

money doesn't grow on trees.

I'm proud when I look

in the mirror and see

the spitting image of Mother.

                  --Brenda Kay Ledford 

Patricia's Lost and Found Ring

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.  Mark 11:24 (NIV)

 Patricia and Lula Bell were writing encouragements in Bibles to hand out to the graduates at Hayesville High School.  Eighty four seniors were to graduate and invited to the Baccalaureate Service at Truett Church. The women were in the conference room working, but decided to place the boxes in the pastor's office.

The boxes of Bibles were very heavy.  Patricia almost dropped them on the pastor's desk.  When one box slipped from her hand, it ripped the emerald set from her ring.  She and Lula Bell searched everywhere for the set.  They looked on the desk, got on the floor, couldn't find it anywhere.  Now this was a special ring and Patricia was distraught that she had lost it.

She and Lula Bell prayed that they would find the ring.

Patricia went home, put on her pajamas and prayed again that she would find her ring.  The next morning, she got up and something was sparkling on the floor.  She thought it was a lightning bug and got a tissue to pick it up.  

When she picked up the hard object, Patricia gasped.  It was the emerald set to her ring.  She lifted a prayer of praise because God had answered her and Lula Bell's prayer.

Finding the ring was like sweet music to Patricia's ears, but she wasn't surprised.  Nothing was too hard for God! 

I believe in praying for simple things even to finding a precious ring.

DECORATION DAY

 Many of my relatives are buried at Many Forks Baptist Church in Towns County, Georgia.  Each year on the fourth Sunday in May, they hold Decoration Day.  Families go to the cemetery to decorate the graves of loved ones.  Worship service is held of the morning, then they break for dinner-on-the-grounds.  That afternoon a singing is held in the church. This old-time mountain tradition is fading away.  

Decorating graves was founded to remember deceased soldiers.  It was the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, passed by Congress in 1968, that officially changed Decoration Day to Memorial Day effective in 1971.

I recall my mama made roses from crepe paper for the decoration.  Flowers were cut from crepe paper, dipped in melted wax to form the roses.  Mama made a box of these flowers to place on the graves of loved ones.  

Before the men made tables from planks, dinner-on-the-grounds was held on blankets that they spread on the ground under the shade trees.  The women brought boxes of food to the dinner.  Most mountain women grew a garden and there were loads of vegetables, fried chicken, cakes, pies, banana pudding, gallons of sweet tea.  No one left hungry.

It was a time of fun, fellowship, and getting acquainted with family and friends.  Here in the foreground are Aunt Dot Lee and Edna Brown, two regulars at Decoration Day.

I miss those times gathering at the country church each May to decorate the graves of loved ones, savor dinner-on-the-grounds, listen to groups lifting praises with their musical instruments.  Old-time preachers delivered uplifting messages to warm the hearts of those who attended the worship service.

A Wildflower Refuge

 My yard needs mowing?

It's like a wilderness.

Bees buzz on clover,

dragonflies whizz through azure skies.

Dog-flea flowers nod

their purple heads in the wind,

songbirds perform a gig in poplars,

and wild roses perfume the hills.

My yard needs mowing?

It's a wildflower refuge,

a scarlet robe drapes my lawn,

buttercups pop up like sun drops.

One bunny rabbit hops over

a mat of verdant grass

and nibbles granola snacks,

butterflies feed on milkweed.

Tourists tumble from a van,

Jane dances on dandelions,

Spot poses center stage,

and Dick photographs the flowers.

                --Brenda Kay Ledford 

I hope all my blogger friends are having a beautiful spring. 

                 To all the moms:

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!