Summer's End

As you can tell by the tittle of this post I started it a couple of months ago but as the post states I was very busy at the time and just plain lost track of time...Now that time has slowed and the winter has found it's way into my back yard I again have time to write so I sat down and finished what I had started to write here... Hope that you enjoy the read and I hope that some of the love and warmth that we found in my Momma's kitchen will find its way into your hearts...

Summer is coming to an end and Harvest is upon us...My caner is going a mile a minute these days and as I sit and slice and dice I think upon the days long gone by...Days when my Poppy and I would spend hours in the garden picking all the fruits of our labors...Days when I would spend hours in the kitchen with my Momma as she patiently taught me how to prepare all those things to be preserved for later use and then she patiently showed me how to preserve them too...Those were not only days of hard work and satisfaction for a job well done but a time of delicious smells and laughter  and the many stories that  Momma and Poppy would tell of my ancestors and all the trials and tribulations that they went through to get to where they were and to have the things that God had blessed them with...Poppy would tell me the many stories his father had told him of the old world and planting potatoes and playing in the fields...He would tell me of the hard times and how they all worked together to keep food on the table just as we were doing now...He would tell me to take a good look at all that is around me and to remember that it is a gift I should take good care of so that it would last through my lifetime and that of the many more that would follow after me...Momma would tell me of the times that her and Gram(Who was a tailor and dressmaker) would be working on a dress for some very special occasion and Momma  would get hopelessly tangled in the thread and they would both burst out laughing at the impossibility of the task of getting her untangled again...or of the time when Momma tried to save some money and make all Poppy's shirts one year and ended up with several sleeves of different lengths (oh my did Gram get a kick outta that one) and we laughed just remembering what Poppy looked like standing proudly in his home made shirts...I remember how he smiled at Momma and said "They are perfect and who will ever know since they are always rolled up"...The simple life was how they lived and how they taught me by example that no amount of money could ever buy all the good things in life...Happiness was yours for the taking and if you fall down reach out your hand and the Lord will be there to help you up again...The laughter and the delicious smells will always be with me and the memory of all the love they symbolized will never fade for instilled in me and a crucial part of my life is all of the traditions and recipes for a great simple life that my parents patiently passed on to me and I now pass on to my children and grandchildren and I pray that they will find their roots in those traditions along with many smiles of their own...