The first thing I consciously heard this morning was the security alarm warning that someone had either entered or left the house. This means you have too few seconds before sirens start screaming, bells clang, dogs bark and the phone starts ringing. This also meant I jumped out of bed and was half way to the control unit in the master bedroom when I heard my husband plugging in the code. He opened the front door a second time, and a forestry department plane sounded like it was going to come through the front door. I thought, "Oh no. It's going to be one of those kind of days." I grabbed my glasses, so I could see the time of day. Without them, I can barely see my watch. 9:00 AM. How did that happen? I have already missed a couple of hours of the day. I consider crawling back into bed, but decide it would be only a futile effort to grab a few extra winks.
By the time I get downstairs, the bulldogs and husband have returned, and the bulldogs are standing in the kitchen waiting for their treats. Once again, Daddy intentionally "forgot" to give them their reward for being such good dogs. He has an attitude that dogs shouldn't have to be rewarded for answering nature's call.
The coffee is "perking," or whatever coffee does in today's modern pots. When I was a child, I always loved watching the coffee rise into the little glass lid handle as it perked away on the open flame while Mother hurried around the kitchen preparing my father's breakfast. I knew that soon the coffee pot would be placed on a hot pad on the table. My dad only had so much time before getting the tractor into the field to begin his day of planting or tilling, depending on the season. He would pour his coffee from his cup into a saucer to cool it and then drink it from the saucer. I wasn't allowed to have coffee then. It became one of the many goals I had like getting to iron his shirts, getting to bring in coal for the coal stove, carrying water into the house from the big well across the road and washing dishes. I was given no fail assignments like drying the utensils, going upstairs to get a jar of canned food for dinner,and wiping off the table. It's interesting how much time I spent longing to do chores, and how that matched up against the hours I would later spend trying to avoid them. I had an advantage in those days. I was a girl, and I was the baby of the family. That meant chores usually got assigned to my brother. The rest of my siblings had already grown up and left home.
I was an observer of life. I used to count how many times Mother would place her foot under a cat's belly and toss it across the yard when she was hanging out clothes and marvel that the cat kept coming back to rub against her leg. I swear it went sailing through the air further each time, always landing on its feet and returning. I thought it wanted to annoy her. Now I wonder if it simply liked flying.
There was a special way Mother hung the laundry linking one item to the next, white to whites, clolored items to colored items and always putting the clothespins in the same place on each piece of clothing. She managed the clothes basket, the clothespins, the wet laundry and the cats in a precision manner week after week. Wash day was always on Monday, and it was an all day job although she cooked three hot meals while getting the laundry done. Her laundry area looked like an assembly line with dirty clothes sorted in piles on the surrounding floor, a huge long tub of water heating on an open flame double burner stove, a washing machine that chugged like a little steam engine, the buckets she used to carry water into the house where she heated the water and poured it into the machine, the wringer where she ran every item through and let them fall into a big tub filled with cold water, which was the rinse water. Then she wrung the small items by hand. Larger ones might be put back through the wringer again. She carried all of the items outside to a clothesline strung between two poles the entire length of the house and more. I use to love to weave around through the wet clothes as they flopped in the wind but always had to stop when Mother saw what I was doing. Tuesday was also used for drying on the line, and Wednesday was ironing day.
Everything was ironed. Sheets, dish towels, Daddy's work shirts and pants, our dresses, skirts, and literally all items were ironed. Just like her laundry routine, she also ironed in a orderly fashion. First the collar on the shirt, next cuffs, then the sleeves, and next was the back of the shirt. She then ironed under the button and button hole areas and followed with ironing both front sides of the shirt paying close attention to both pockets. When she felt it was finished, she would hold it up for inspection and sometimes touch up the pockets, cuffs and collar. Every item was ironed in the same order weekly. When it rained, she had to change the laundry days and on a farm, this means you have to pick up the pace or get behind. You should have seen her run when the clothes were on the line, and it started raining.
There was always a precision to Mother's tasks whether she was doing laundry, canning, preparing meals, or doing the dishes. We didn't have a dishwasher. The water had to be carried in for cleaning and the dirty water carried out after it was used. There was no sink either, so she started with the cleanest and finished with the dirtiest. That's why glasses were always first followed by cups and saucers, then the plates and utensils and lastly, the pans beginning with the cleanest pan. Every item had to be dried also. Dishes were done after each meal, which meant she had to do this three times per day. No garbage disposals, so leftover food on plates had to be scraped into a bucket and carried outside.
Day after day, month after month, year after year, my mother kept our home going while my dad farmed the fields. I guess that's why they never spent much time wondering about life. They were just so focused on surviving.
Whew! As my mind wanders into the past, I think that security alarm issue this morning was a pretty minor annoyance. I have to go now. Oh one more comment...our security on the farm was my Dad's 12 gauge. It put the food on our table, and it killed many a varmit trying to steal from our garden or hen house. But that's another memory.....
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