Frankentater

Ain't got much to say on this post. Just wanted to show off these pictures of my dad and his prize winning sweet taters!  Twernt no animals harmed in the making of these taters. No illegal steroid injections either. Man, that's gonna be one big sweet tater casserole! Bet dad wishes I was still around to do THIS.

Read more...

Planting Time In Tennessee!

I've often posted about how my dad always planted large gardens when I was growing up. We relied on those vegetables to fill our hungry stomachs. I can remember when I was being forced to help plant, dig, weed, and hill, thinking "I'll never put out a garden when I grow up and get out on my own!" I couldn't wait for the day I could finally get out from under my parents rule and do things my own way. I'm telling you the honest truth, I wasn't away from home a year before I was longing for that old garden. There was something inside of me that wanted to be walking barefooted on that old red clay dirt, pitching seeds into an ankle deep row and anxiously awaiting to see the first sprout come out of the ground. You can take boy out of the country but you'll never take the country out of the boy.

Below are some pictures of my dad planting his garden this spring. I'll bet he wishes I was still around to help... I know I sure do.

Read more...

Longing for Summer

Seems I've been doing this a lot lately. From my Facebook page:

Byron Chesney is driving the cold weather away by drifting back to the summer of '76; walking barefooted in the red clay dirt in daddy's garden, digging taters, drinking from the garden hose, climbing fences, running through Roseberry Creek, walking the railroad rails, catching lightning bugs, and playing Ghost in the Graveyard with my sisters and cousins. Don't wake me up...

Read more...

Precious memories sealed forever

Last night while I was preaching a sermon at church about Eternal Security, I was talking about the sealing of the Holy Spirit and as often happens, my mind drifted back to my childhood days. I compared Jesus sealing us with His Holy Spirit with the way my mother used to seal canned vegetables. I recalled how we used to sit around and listen to the Kerr lids seal on those old Ball jars. I was amazed at how much detail just flooded through my mind about how my mom would can. If I sit here right now with my eyes closed and think real hard, I can almost smell the different scents and feel the steamy hot kitchen from my childhood home.

All of this made me realize how different things are nowadays. My kids don't know a thing about canning vegetables. Where we live the ground is not suitable for a garden so we just buy our vegetables. We rarely ever bought store canned vegetables when I was growing up. Seems we always had green beans, tomatoes, tomato juice, corn, and of course, pickles. It was always my job to help shuck corn, string green beans, shell peas, dig taters and stuff like that. Dad grew and picked the vegetables and Mom prepared them.

Some scenes that unfold in my mind are of a large pressure cooker shooting steam from the top. Watching the little round pressure regulator dance around on top of the pot and imitating the pshhh, pshhh, sound it would make. Dish towels spread out on the kitchen counter with Ball jars sitting on top of them. Listening to the "tink" sound that the Kerr lids would make when the jars would seal. Man, those were some good times back then but of course I didn't realize it at the time. What I would give to be able to go back in time to those precious days. Sitting barefooted around the kitchen table playing with plastic cowboys and indians, while my mother worked away canning as she listened to radio broadcasts on WKXV radio. Dad in a white t-shirt with red clay dirt stains mixed with sweat, chasing flies around the house with a fly swatter. Pam in the living room banging away on the piano keys. Jennifer with her thumb in her mouth, dragging her tattered blanket around, scratching the silky edges with her finger. I hope my kids have such fond memories.

Read more...

In my mind I'm always going home

"Home was a swimming hole and a fishing pole and the feel of a muddy row between my toes Home was a back porch swing where I would sit and mom would sing amazing grace while she hung out the clothes, Home was an easy chair with my daddy there and the smell of Sunday supper on the stove My footsteps carry me away but in my mind I'm always going home" -Joe Diffie, "Home"

I was pleased to open an email from my cousin Danny last week, that contained several old pictures. His parent's lived beside my papaw, Lorn Chesney. You can tell that these pictures were taken from their driveway. In the background you will see my papaw's old farm. This is where I grew up. If you look really close, to the left behind papaw's big 2-story house, you can see some of my parent's house peaking out from behind the trees. Unless you are familiar with our place, you probably can't get a good grasp on it.

These old pictures sure do bring back lots of fond memories for me. The old barn where I used to play and help put up hay. The muddy pond that I accidentally drove Lorn's mule and sled into. Clyde, the old draft horse that Lorn used to plow our garden with. The cows that Pam and I accidentally gave diarrhea to by feeding them green apples. Lorn and Bessie's old 2-story house where I would on occasion spend the night and look out the window longing for home. I can see Lorn's old garage that was always cool and musty smelling. He would hang pieces of hog meat from twine from the eaves.

Also in these old pictures I see my cousins. Patsy, the one that stumbled upon my nakedness when I was talked into climbing into the dog cage in her parent's garage. My tormentor and cousin, Danny, holding a nice stringer of fish, looking so innocent. I'll bet he's not grinning because of the fish though. He's probably happy because he had just put me in a small package and rolled me down the hill behind his parent's house! ;) The fish he is holding look to be a little larger than what we used to catch out of Roseberry creek (which is in the background of some of these pictures).

Gosh, I could just go on and on daydreaming and reminiscing about old times. These pictures sure have been a comfort to me on this cold January day.

Read more...

Them was some smart cows alright

My papaw Chesney owned several acres of farm land in rural Knox Co. He gave my parents an acre of it and that is where I grew up. The land around our house was cow pastures and woods. My best friend, Kevin, and I, spent our whole lives playing on that piece of land. We camped, played, worked, fought, and rode our bikes on every piece of dirt of it.

Up on the very top of the property was a huge area where our families would all garden. We planted taters, beans, corn, okra, tomatoes, watermelon, squash, strawberries, peanuts, and anything else imaginable. Our garden was a very large part of our lives and sometimes our only means for providing food for our family.

One summer, I think I was 10 years old, Kevin and I had been riding our bikes up and down the hill and all around the garden. We ramped off of hard crusted cow-piles and tried to dodge the hundreds of dried up hoof prints that permeated the ground. I guess we probably rode around for at least 3 hours or so before we headed back down to my parent's house.

Later on that evening Kevin and I were out playing in the front yard when dad came running up to us. "What in the sam-hill were you boys doing playing in the garden?" "Huh? We weren't playing in the garden dad," was my reply. "Yeah you were, and you left the gate wide open and the cows have gotten in and ate up all of the corn!" I thought dad had lost his marbles. "Honest dad, we never opened the gate." "Well it didn't just open up by itself and you all were the only ones up there this morning!" "But we didn't open the gate!" Dad carried on for another 5 minutes or so telling us how we had ruined the corn crop and we were never again to ride our bikes up on the hill. He then stomped off madder than a hornet. Kevin and I just stood there and looked at each other in disbelief. We had not opened that gate or even gotten near it.

We walked up on the hill to the garden to survey the damage. Sure enough, cows had destroyed the entire corn crop. Papaw was in the garden trying to upright fallen corn stalks and trying to find ears that had not been eaten. We tried to explain to him that we didn't leave the gate open but he wasn't hearing it. He wouldn't even look at us. We just walked away with our heads hung low and wondering how the cows had gotten into the garden. We decided that them cows were just smart cows and had somehow let themselves in.

We were never allowed to ride our bikes around the garden anymore after that and no one ever believed that we weren't the cause of it all.

Moral of the story: Sometimes your just in the wrong place at the wrong time, life happens, deal with it!

Read more...

Raised on taters and lard

A recent post about silos, over on the Hillbilly Savants blog, made me start thinking about the way things “used to be,” well at least for this Knoxville boy.

Growing up poor had its benefits. You didn’t have to worry about where you were going to spend your money, because you didn’t have any! You also didn’t have the cumbersome task of going to the grocery store and trying to figure out what foods you were going to purchase, because you raised your own.

My kids have no idea what it is like to roll out of bed as the rooster is crowing and head out to the garden to hill taters, hoe corn, weed tomatoes, etc… They would probably die if they spent their Christmas vacation butchering hogs, skinning rabbits, and making lard, instead of playing video games. Or spend most of their summer vacation hauling hay, shoveling manure, picking beans, and digging taters, instead of, well…playing video games. But that was my life way back then. I didn’t ever question it. I never even knew there was another way of life.

Last Sunday I spent 4 hours at my parents house going through boxes of old pictures. In total there were 6 big plastic tubs full, I only made it through 3 of them. I picked out about 100 or so that I took home to scan. They sure do bring back fond memories.

The first 2 pics below are of my papaw, Lorn Chesney, plowing the garden with his horse "Clyde." The other 2 are of my dad picking squash and fertilizing the garden.

Read more...

A litte "gee" and a little "ha"

It's a lost art now days, but not so long ago folks in these parts plowed their gardens and mowed off their fields with some real horsepower, or mule power in most cases. In the Spring of the year I would fully expect to be walking behind my papaw as he was "geeing" and "hawing" his way around the huge acre garden that we had.

I remember one long eared mule named "Ruth," that would pull the plow and rail-sled all over the farm. One sad summer, old Ruth passed on and papaw bartered up for a huge Clydesdale horse. Fittingly, he named it "Clyde."



Clyde never complained and never seemed to break a sweat. It was almost comical to see my 98 pound papaw holding back on the reigns and yelling out commands loud enough to echo off of the surrounding stand of Oak trees. "Gee, haw, geediyap, whoaaa, git-round-yaar," I would often imitate his commands and pretend that I was leading the big Clydesdale.



One wonderful and terrible day, papaw gave in to my pleading and allowed me to drive the rail-sled down the hill to the barn. "Don't go in that pond," was the last thing I remember him saying as I led Clyde straight into the pond, pulling me and papaw along behind him on the sled. That was the last time I got to drive Clyde, but that was OK, I was content to sit back and enjoy the ride!

Read more...

Git out there and hill them taters boy!

This time of year always causes me to reflect back on my early days growing up in Knoxville. Hot weather, walking barefooted through the finely tilled dirt, and hearing the mourning doves, cicadas, and whippoorwills in the distance. Ah... if I could only close my eyes and be transported back to those times. Although, I could probably do without the scolding from my dad.

Twas such a familiar thing for me to hear, my dad hollering at me to get off of my lazy hind-end and get out in the garden to hill the taters (that's potatoes for all of you Appalachianly challenged folks.) When you depended on vegetables out of the garden to keep your family fed, you did everything humanly possible to make sure that your efforts weren't wasted. One of the necessary evils of raising taters, is having to make sure that when they come in, they aren't damaged from sunlight. You see, even though potatoes grow underground, if the roots of the plants are not covered with enough dirt, the potatoes will get sun damaged and turn green. This green is actually an increase in the Glycoalkaloids which creates Solanine, a powerful toxin. If you eat a green potato, chances are you're gonna be trottin' out to the old outhouse soon after. Solanine causes a number of things to happen to you. Mainly, it gives you severe diarrhea! They say that you can die from Solanine poison, although I've never known anybody to croak from eating green taters.

So, getting back to tater hilling... Just in case you don't know what tater hilling is, it's when you take a hoe and pull dirt up around the bottom of the tater plants. You pile it up nice and high so that the roots are covered well. It's a back breaking job, especially when you have an acre garden and nearly half of it is occupied by taters! It was always my job to hill the taters when I was growing up. Lucky me.

I was browsing the Web for articles about tater hilling and I ran across the neatest contraption, it's called the Quadivator™ Hilling Mold Boards (Potato Hiller) Attachment. My gosh, to think of all of the anger and frustration I could have been saved from. Of course, my Papaw's horse, Clyde, probably wouldn't have liked pulling this fancy contraption around the garden.

I orignally posted this article over on the Hillbilly Savants Blog.

Read more...