country grandma

Now for my mom's mom; my country grandma! It was a real adventure going to visit grandma! She lived on 40 acres right next to some federal land; so we had plenty of room to roam! (and get chased by bears!)

This is the grandma who let us pick out our own chicken in the spring when she would get an order of 100 chicks in each year and of course, we always knew just which one was "ours" (lol!) each time we came to visit. I don't know how many times I would go into the chicken coop and walk around with the chickens. I had a blast catching grasshoppers and feeding them to the chickens.

Now come the end of summer, we would go up to visit and we would have a big grilled chicken dinner! Yep, we got to help her kill "our" chickens. We held them steady while she cut their heads off. A modified plastic gallon milk jug helped also. She would slide the head of the chicken though the 'mouth' of the jug from the inside (the bottom of the jug was cut away) and we would hold the body of the chicken, she would grasp the head with one hand and cut it's neck with a wickedly huge knife with the other hand. Then we would toss them in the air and they would run around for a bit with their head cut off and we would have to chase them down. We also plucked our own chicken!

This is the grandma with no bathroom indoors. She had water to the kitchen but an outhouse out behind her house. (it was a two seater but only one person used it at a time)

This is the grandma who taught me how to tell when a berry was ripe. And boy did we pick some berries! Blackberries, blueberries, raspberries! YUM! And grandma could make some pies!! My favorite of hers was blueberry! I can still remember the taste.

I must also confess that this is the grandma that I inherited my "ratapackotosis" from; yeah we saved everything.... although I am not up to saving bread wrappers! I'm pretty sure that since she has moved from there and now lives in a real city, she no longer 'saves' like she use to. But I do enough for both of us!

This is the grandma I learned perseverance from. She dug out and built a two story addition onto her home by hand by herself. Laying each cinder block and hammering each nail. The basement was block and the top floor was wood. It was a nice addition! Not huge but doubled her small house size at least.

She is a fiery little domino who does not quit for anything, not even heart surgery! (we found out AFTER it was done)

I am very blessed to have such a grandma in my life! I'm just glad I was smart enough to learn from her!