Happy Birthday Char!

Today is my little sister's b-day. Actually, my only sister. I hope you have a wonderful day.
I asked her to give me some of her memories about our Grandpa. This is what she wrote:

"I dont have too many..what comes to mind is him buying/getting meat scraps or fat from the Ortiz' store and rendering the fat. Mom said he would then take cans of lard to all the neighbors. I assume this was in the depression when even lard was hard to come by.

One of my favorite memories is him sitting outside the shed with a hen on his lap. :)"

 

We always had some farm animals. Chickens for sure. Sometimes pigs, cows, horses, turkeys, ducks, goats & of course our dogs. Most of our meat was fresh. He also had a huge garden watered by ditch irrigation. When I was very young he would use me as his marker on the rows during watering. I would stand near the end of a long row & signal to him when the water reached me. He would then use a shovel to stop the water in that row & open the next one. Of course he would make sure I stepped into the next dry row. Those rows seemed like hills to me back then. I know now that he really didn't need me to do this, but he knew that I would rather be with him than anywhere else. When the crops were ready my brother, some cousins & I would go help him gather. He taught me how to break a watermelon in half & eat the sweet, juicy heart 1st. Usually the rest was left for the birds.

I loved eating fresh vegetables while we picked the ripe veggies & fruit. I think all the preservatives are killing us.

 

My mother would can, dry or freeze a lot of the crops. Neighbors would send their kids with 25(dos reales) or 50(cuatro reales) cents to buy tomatoes & chiles. Grandpa would fill a bushel or half bushel basket for them & give their money back. He would usually throw in a melon or squash for good measure. We had so many bushel baskets us kids would play with them all day. We got in trouble if we tore one up. Hide & Seek was easy if you were small enough to hide under a basket.

To be a child again & enjoy the simplicity of not being electronically connected to the world. But then again, I wouldn't be able to share my memories with you all.

My daughter & I drove to the Iron Skillet for breakfast. It's about 12 miles west of Deming. This was my first time driving in 31 days! The food was not worth the drive. But at least it proved to be relatively easy for me. Except that, after stopping at Wal-Mart for 2 gel chair cushions I felt like I'd had a full session of PT. Ouch. Iced my hip & it felt much better.