A Traditional Farm Life
By Shasta Hamilton
Greetings from Enterprise, dear
friends! Time sure flies this time of
year. We’re thankful for the increased
traffic we’ve seen at The Buggy Stop recently, including a crop of new
customers. Thank you, and please come
again!
We are also thankful to see a roof
on the Hoffman Grist Mill down the street.
A grain mill must by necessity be tall, and the three story building
with a steeply pitched barn-style roof needed “professional help” to be roofed
safely. A big “thank you” to all the
volunteers who have got the project this far along.
If you were unable to volunteer so
far, but have a desire to help, let us know.
If you have the financial means to help cover the costs of this venture,
all help is greatly appreciated. Simply
contact Joe Minick or Michael at The Buggy Stop.
Getting the basic mill structure
put up has been a great milestone for the project. (Or should it be millstone?) Now, for the time being, the boys can scurry
on to other needed projects.
Last Saturday the boys attended an
old-fashioned farm sale near Carlton.
They felt fortunate to bring home an anvil for the blacksmithing forge,
as well as a harrow for the garden and a small grain cart.
Here on the home front, the girls
and I have been cooking up a storm for various events, including extended
family gatherings. Things have seemed
particularly hectic the last few weeks.
In fact, on Tuesday as I was at the
restaurant baking the bread and preparing the sides for the week, I felt
particularly scattered. I’d be putting the
ingredients into the mixing bowl, and the phone would ring. Then, I’d go back and have to think carefully
to determine what ingredients had already gone into the bowl. About that time either the phone would ring
again or someone would drop by. This seemed to go on and on all day long.
I got to thinking about the
similarity of the situation to a “recipe” I remembered from a community
cookbook in which the mother’s little boy, doorbells, and phone calls kept
stymieing the progress of the day’s baking.
Last night I pulled several
cookbooks off my shelf, trying to remember which one had that cute story. (With more than 200 cookbooks on my shelves
to choose from, it was no simple task.)
Pretty certain it was in one of my Mennonite or Amish cookbooks, I
pulled the first likely candidate down and paged through. Not finding it, I checked a few other possibilities,
which turned out to be dead ends, finally deciding to go to bed and try again
this morning.
I went to that same first choice
again this morning, “The Montezuma Amish Mennonite Cookbook,” given to me by my
mother this time of year in 1991.
Upon overnight reflection, it
occurred to me that maybe the “recipe” I was searching for was printed in the
text as an actual recipe rather than of one of those little bits of “wit and
wisdom” often found in italics as filler on the bottom of the page.
It was fun looking. Some humorous, some wise, some pointing out
the truth of the human condition, I came across all my old favorites, like “A
little bit of this and a little bit of that, makes you big and fat.”
“Happiness is not having what you
want, but wanting what you have.”
And the one that has hit a little
too close to home all these years: “Nothing annoys a woman more than to have
friends drop in unexpectedly, and find the house looking as it usually does.”
And then suddenly, there it was, on
page 43 in the middle of the “Cakes and Frostings” section: “To Make a Cake . . .”
To Make a Cake .
. .
1. Light oven; get out utensils and
ingredients. Remove blocks and toy autos
from table.
2. Grease pan, crack nuts.
3. Measure 2 cups of flour; remove Johnny’s
hands from flour; wash flour off him.
Remeasure flour.
4. Put flour, baking powder, and salt in
sifter. Get dustpan and brush up pieces
of bowl Johnny knocked on floor. Get
another bowl. Answer doorbell.
5. Return to kitchen. Remove Johnny’s hands from bowl. Wash Johnny.
Answer phone.
6. Return.
Remove 1/4-inch salt from greased pan.
Look for Johnny. Grease another
pan. Answer phone.
7. Return to kitchen and find Johnny. Remove his hands from bowl. Take up greased pan and find layer of
nutshells in it. Head for Johnny, who flees, knocking bowl off table.
8. Wash kitchen floor, table, walls,
dishes. Call baker. Lie down.
(cite - Montezuma Amish Mennonite Cookbook.
Yoder's Catering Service: 1988, p. 43.)
Copyright © 2015 by Shasta Hamilton
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