Apple Butter and Outhouses Part 2 by Loretta

[Editor's Note: This story is by Loretta]

I guess you can say, we survived on what we raised. From the garden, to canning for the winter months, to raising chickens, rabbits and hogs, which were slaughtered and stored in food lockers. Even trading for dairy products.

I remember my mother raising a goose for Easter Dinner but when it came time, she couldn’t kill it because it had become a pet. Instead she traded for a duck. The other family ate goose; we had duck. My mother was funny in that way, she could kill and prepare the chickens for Sunday dinner but she never ate them.

I remember we had a crab apple that had tons of apples. They were tart and we’d take the salt shakers up on the hill to where the tree was, douse our apples with salt and usually leave the shakers behind. Mom would have to wait for us to retrieve them and bring them back home. Oh, the trouble we’d get into!

We had a neighbor by the name of Mr. Copley and he had a pair of horses that pulled a big flat bed junk wagon. While on his route, if he saw us walking, he’d give us a ride home. In the summer, he’d give us hay rides. But come October 31, we'd still knock his outhouse over! Of course, the next day, we’d stand it up again.

When I was about 8 years old my parents sold the acreage and moved to Des Moines and bought a house there. Across the street was a park. In the summer, they opened the recreation building and we played board games as well as baseball, basketball and tether ball. There was a wading pool, which everyone was in. In the winter, when the pool froze over, everyone would ice skate.

Those were the years I remember the most.