The Red Flannel Rag

During the months ahead, apple butter would be served with pinto beans and

homemade cottage cheese. It was spread on homemade bread and soaked with milk.

This was my daddy’s favorite bedtime snack. It was made into apple butter rolls when

there was extra pie dough. We walked about half of a mile from the school bus in the

evenings. Some of my favorite memories go back to when I would be nearly home and

smell apple butter rolls, pinto beans, and homemade bread. I always felt secure as those

smells filled my nostrils and my mind with memories of Grandma Molly and apple

butter boiling. Mom had been very busy on those special days.

Apple butter was an excellent treatment for burns. Mom said, “It takes the fire

out of a burn better than anything I know of.” She s pread it on a clean white cloth and

applied it directly to the wound. The cloth was worn for a day or two.

Gardening

Not only were wild fruits and vegetables gathered, but they were also grown and

processed for eating in the winter months. We had ways of keeping food all winter.

When the cabbage was ready, we would dig a ditch and bury the heads upside down with

the roots sticking out. It stayed good until late March. Holes were dug in the ground

and lined with straw for storing apples. They kept that way all winter.

All gardening and preserving was done according to the signs of the Zodiac and

the phases of the moon. I remember my mother saying: “There is a sign for almost

everything, planting, butchering, preserving, pruning, setting hen eggs, cutting hair.

Why, I wouldn’t think of planting a garden without looking up the signs first; it says so

right in the Bible! To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the

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