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praying for a bounteous yield then watering & hoeing to do his part. Then he waits the wait for sun & rain he prays will come. All summer long he knows with God's help it will be what he needs. As he gathers it his heart is full of thankfulness to God who makes the yield. We are always counting our blessings, making the best of what we have, making it go as far as we can. I always had flowers & a vegetable garden, everything grew so well with good soil & spring water. We didn't have melons at the garden. On the bottom land along the river melons & squash matured well but floods often came & washed them away. From the Coyote Wash that headed north of the Escudilla Mountain, one day we heard the usual roaring in a canyon three miles
or more to the east of us so we went so the edge of the hill to watch it.There were huge cakes of hail as big as a double bed
& larger. Of course it packed in among the willows & all through corn or any crop. The hail were large & packed in with trash. I went down to the willows & found hail to help keep butter & cream cool. When I churned a month later we made ice cream from that hail. We made ice cream by turning & turning a bucket of the prepared cream mixture with hail & salt around it until the cream is frozen. With the constant turning it froze good. I kept my cream in a pan with a little water around the dish & a damp cloth, in a window. The cream that way at night made it cool enough. only in the hottest weather, to make good butter. I often sold butter & eggs to get groceries & other things. My
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pounds were always full measure. We most always had plenty of milk & butter. Sometimes we made cheese for our own use. We could always trade it to the Mexicans who lived east of us for onions & peppers which they excelled us in raising.
The Vegils had a little valley that was warmer than along the river. They were nice people & had children to go to school with ours. One Christmas, the little boy came in the afternoon to play. I made cookies for the children to have a play dinner as Lou had gotten dishes. The Mexican boy nibbled the cookies so slowly to have the taste longer & was very polite. Moroni, Ben & John had a thrasher & thrashed for the Mexicans along the river & near ranches.
I liked this, I got the suggestion from an article.
- From fading stubble field the shocks of wheat
Are gathered, where the thrashing has begun
The straining horses go with plodding feet
Making a double ring.
The driver calls & whistles from his stand
That makes the grease soaked Cogs go round.
The cylinder screams or blares & roars.
Loose straw & chaff borne upward falls in showers.
The winnowed wheat from the grain spout pours.
Thrashing brings a note of carnival
As farmers view their grain
While steadily, the pitchers bundles fall
Where they are quickly cut & passed
Into the drum under blue tent of sky,
As old as pageantry for bread supply.
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