There are not too many things that I remember about meals on the Farm. But I do remember having breakfast with Grandpa Golding. He would fry up some bacon and eggs then he would take a slice of homemade bread and lay it face down in the bacon grease to let it fry for a few seconds. It was so good. For weeks after going home I begged mom to let me soak my bread in bacon grease before I’d eat it…she wouldn’t go for it.

There were always several cows on the farm that needed to be milked morning and night. All of the milking was done by hand. I used to love sitting with Uncle Floyd or one of my cousins, usually David, Keith, or Danny as they milked. We would try and squirt milk into each others mouth right from the cow’s tit or into the mouth of a cat that was always there with us milking. After milking the cows they would put the milk from their milking bucket into a 25 gallon milk can and carry the milk down to Floyd’s basement to ran it though the separator. The separator had a large basin on top that the raw milk was pored into. The basin had a cheese cloth filter on it to clean out anything that may have made its way into the milk while the cows were being milked. The side of the separator had a handle that we had to crank. It spun a gyro inside the separator that had to spin at a specific speed in order to separate the milk from the heavier cream. The cream came out the top spout and the milk came out the bottom spout. I loved to help…of course I didn’t have to do it every day like my cousins who lived on the farm all the time did, for me it was something new and exciting.

I recall being able to have a nice tall cold glass of milk with Grandpa Golding with our breakfast. It is interesting how some things are as vivid as if it had just happened and for me a nice cold glass of milk takes me back to sitting at the table with grandpa eating breakfast.

I also remember taking the cream and churning butter in the kitchen with Grandma Golding. Oh, we

were so excited to have a turn cranking the butter churn and see the paddles stir the cream inside the gallon sized glass churn. The thing was it took forever and ever…and ever and it did not seem as if anything was happening. It did not take too long for us kids to grow board and try to wander off to more exciting endeavors, but mom and grandma kept us there until it was finished. The butter was quite different than I was used to. It was very sweet and creamy. As I think about it, I actually think that I was used to having margarine and the butter was different than I expected it to be. I remember taking some home with us and how we made it last as long as we could.

Another thing I remember doing with the cream was that on one occasion we were visiting the farm in the winter, it was so cold and snowy and us kids were not able to spend very much time outside. Late in the afternoon I got all bundled up and went out with Uncle Floyd and down to the pond. The pond was frozen enough for us to walk on. Along the edge of the pond we chopped up some of the ice and put it in a bucket to take back to the house. Later that night we used some fresh cream and the ice to make some home made ice cream. We each took a turn cranking the handle of the ice cream maker. It took a while but I will never forget how amazed I was when we took the top off and there was so much ice cream inside, and it was so good. I wanted to help licking the beater inside but my older cousins beat me to it. We all sat around in Floyd’s house enjoying the ice cream and each others company as we talked, listened to the record player, and told corny jokes.