Front Yard, Or Pasture?

Scott rolled out of bed and looked outside. It was still dark, but he could see that the eastern sky was just starting to lighten. He groggily pulled a fresh uniform out of the closet and got dressed. He pulled his belt through the loops on his pants as he walked downstairs. He opened the door at the bottom of the curved stairway and walked past his father on his way to the kitchen.

 

“You just made it, sleepy head,” Dale commented as his second son walked by. “I was just about to call you again and put the fruit snacks away.”

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Scott nodded without offering a verbal response. He lacked the presence of mind to say much of anything until he had a cup or two of coffee in him. He picked up the last remaining package of dinosaur and shark fruit snacks off the table as he approached the coffee pot. Dale found that it could be quite difficult to get all five of the children up in time to get ready for the morning milking. Scott was by far the worst waker in the family. As an incentive for his children to get up the first time they were called, Dale would lay five packages of fruit snacks out on the kitchen table. As the children woke up, they picked a package and enjoyed the sweet treat with their coffee. If Dale had to call any of the children twice, he put the remaining packages of fruit snacks back in the cupboard and the late risers missed out.

Scott filled his porcelain mug just a little too full and topped it off with some of the cream off the top of the milk in the fridge. (The Henning family used unpasteurized unfiltered unhomogenized raw milk from their own cows which would separate into a thick cream layer on the top and skim milk on the bottom.) He carefully walked to the kitchen sink where he sipped off the top of his mug until he could successfully walk into the living room without leaving a coffee trail behind him. Once he felt he had achieved an acceptable coffee level for transportation, he looked up and paused.

It was still dark outside so it was kind of hard for him to be sure, but he thought he saw something in the back yard that didn’t quite belong. He turned off the lights over the sink and allowed his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Sure enough, there was something in the back yard that didn’t belong. There, laying in the grass just on the other side of the chain link fence were two black and white Holstein cows. The cows didn’t seem to think anything of their current position. They were just bedding down in the back yard and chewing their cud like everything was exactly as it should be.

Scott turned the sink lights back on and made his way into the living room. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to mention the cows to his father at that point. There was a good chance that Dale already knew, but maybe he didn’t know. If Scott told his dad about the cows and Dale didn’t know about them already, there was a good chance that Scott would never get to finish his coffee. Dale might direct his children to get their boots on immediately and start the early morning roundup. 

Scott walked over the couch on the north side of the living room and looked out the tall window to the left before sitting down. Sure enough, three or four cows had made themselves comfortable on the front yard as well. He sat down and looked across the room at his father. Dale looked up from the encyclopedia he had been paging through and caught his son’s gaze.

“Yes,” he declared. “I’m aware of the bovine infestation in our yard. They’re not doing anything right now, so just finish your coffee and we’ll round them up before milking.”

Scott sighed with relief as his brothers and sister (Kerry was not involved in the morning chores at this point) smiled with satisfaction at being aware of the situation well before Scott. Scott sipped slowly at his steaming mug of coffee, knowing that he needed to wake up more quickly than usual. Dale would want to get moving a little earlier than usual because there was no telling how many of the cows had gotten out overnight and how far they might have gone. 

Scott was right. Just had he downed the last swallow of his morning jump-starter, his dad stowed the foot rest of his recliner and stood up.

“Well,” he yawned. “It’s time to get moving.”

He deposited his mug on the kitchen counter, pulled his coveralls on and slipped his size fourteens into his rubber barn boots. His children lined up behind him and followed suit. The five farm workers filed out the back door, bracing themselves against the chilly autumn air.

“Scott and Luke,” Dale addressed his second and fourth children. “Walk out between the Honda Hutch and the heifer barn and check for cows back there and look behind the Yankee barn while you’re at it. Round up whatever is there and slowly move them towards the barnyard. Try not to get them too excited.”

Scott and Luke nodded and followed their father’s orders. They found a half dozen black and whites that reluctantly rose to their feet and lumbered along the top drive before they turned downhill towards the barnyard. They joined the five or six escapees that had been ousted from inside the white picket fence and the three or four that had taken their evening on the lawn outside the fence and walked across the bottom drive. The barnyard gate had been opened by Caleb who stood guard on the drive to ensure that none of the temporary free-rangers missed their exit from the gravel driveway. 

“Okay,” Dale sighed once the gate was closed. “Bring all the cows out of the barn so we can do a head count. Once we know how many are missing, I’ll go chase them down while you kids get started milking.”

Scott and Luke walked through the bottom of the bank barn until the got to the back. They brought the whole herd out into the barnyard where Dale did his head count. Fortunately, the Henning’s herd was a fairly tame herd and tended to stay pretty close to their traditional stomping grounds and only a couple cows were still unaccounted for. Kelsey and Caleb started milking while Scott and Luke attended to the calves and heifers. It wasn’t long before Dale returned, guiding two more wayward bovines with the three-wheeler. He ushered them into the barnyard and took his place in the milking parlor.

Cider Season

Richard rolled his garden cart into the garage with the “help” of two of his grandsons. Scott stood on one side of his grandpa and Caleb stood on the other. They each held the handle of the garden cart and took half of the credit for Richards hard work. The garden cart carried several homemade apple crates that were heaped with apples. Richard had an orchard that included several different fruit trees including peaches, cherries, plumbs, apricots, and apples. It was apple season. 

Richard had already sorted through his apple harvest and picked out apples that were good enough to store for a while. Those apples would be crated up and stored in the lower part of the barn where it stayed cooler through the fall. They could be used as needed for pie, dumplings, as well as general snacking. The apples that were in the garage had blemishes that prevented them for being good candidates for storing for later use. Those apples were slated to become cider.

Any number of the Henning cousins have been involved in the cider-making process over the years. On this particular occasion, only Dale’s children were present. Their proximity to their grandfather meant that they had the opportunity to spend much more time with Richard and Mary than their other cousins. When Scott was younger, this fact spurred Christa to limit the number of days that he spent with his grandfather to three days a week. She said that if she had let his spend as much time as he wanted to spend with his grandfather, she would never see him.

Richard left the apples in the cart while he set up the cider mill. The cider press consisted of a grinder and hopper mounted above a wooden slat barrel. The whole apparatus was mounted on a hefty stand that stood high enough off the ground to place a five-gallon bucket underneath. He pulled a mesh bag out of a bowl and lined the slat bucket. He turned to address the children behind him.

“Okay,” he began. “Who wants to crank?”

“I will,” Scott volunteered as his brothers and sisters gathered around. 

Scott reach out and grabbed a hold of the handle on a large round wheel that was attached right underneath the hopper. He started to turn the crank slowly at first, then picking up speed until his grandfather nodded his approval. At that point, the other four children started tossing apples into the hopper. A wet crunching sound signified the efficiency of the grinder under the hopper. Soon, juicy chunky pulp started falling out of the discharge end of the grinder into the mesh lined slat barrel underneath. Scott kept cranking and the rest of the children kept tabooing apples into the hopper until the slat barrel got full and instructed everyone to stop.

Scott stopped cranking and stood back to look at the barrel full of pulp underneath the grinder. The apple pulp was piled high in the slat barrel with discernible pieces of skin and seeds easily seen in the pulp. Apple juice was already starting to run out of the spout on the bottom of the platform and into a five-gallon bucket. Richard folded the excess mesh of the barrel liner and placed a thick round piece of wood over the top. Then it was Caleb’s turn to crank. Directly above the slat barrel, there was a flat plate that was attached to the end of a long threaded rod that ran through the top of the press housing where another type of crank was attached to the other end. That crank had four handles so that the person who was cranking could use both hands if necessary. As Caleb cranked that handle, the plate on the other end of the rod lowered until it came in contact with the wooden piece on top of the apple shreddings. Then, he cranked some more. The contents of the slat barrel were compressed towards the bottom of the barrel which pushed all the juices out through the spout. Every time Caleb turned the crank, a surge of juice flowed into the bucket. 

“I think that’s about it,” Caleb declared after a few minutes.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Richard replied as he approached the press. “Let me see if I can do any better.”

Richard grabbed the press crank with both of his meaty farmer hands and proceeded to gain several full rotations beyond what his grandson could achieve. Apple juices once again surged from the spout. Richard stopped cranking soon enough which prompted a question from another grandchild.

“Is it done now, Grandpa?” Kerry asked.

“Not quite,” Richard replied was he reached for something in the corner. “I just need a little more leverage.”

Richard’s large hands closed around an axe handle. He slipped the handle in between two of the crank handles and used the extra length of the axe handle to provide him with the leverage to crank a little bit more. As he cranked, the juice flowed once more until Richard was confident that he had acquired every ounce of moisture that he could from the apple shreddings. He turned the crank in the opposite direction, raising the plate out of the slat barrel. Then, he removed the barrel from its platform and emptied the mesh lining into the bottom of the garden cart. The apple shreddings were dense and surprisingly void of moisture. They were pressed into a cylindrical mass that sat in the bottom of the cart and slowly fell apart under the influence of gravity.

“What are you going to do with those, Grandpa?” Luke inquired.

“Well,” Richard began with his trademark deliberation. “I suppose I’ll take some out to the heifers at the barn, but most of the leftovers will go to my compost pile.”

This process was repeated until all the apples had been shredded and pressed and several five-gallon buckets had been filled with reddish brown cider. Once all the apple crates had been emptied, the cider crew set about ladling the fruits of their labor into gallon jugs.

“Whoa,” Richard chided Kelsey as she ladled cider into a funnel. “Not quite so full. We’re going to put all these jugs into the freezer and if you fill them too full, they’ll explode.”

“Why would they do that?” Kelsey inquired with alarm evident on her face.

“Well, just like water,” Richard began. “Cider expands when it freezes, so you have to leave room in the jug for expansion.”

Kelsey nodded as her grandpa poured the excess back into the bucket. The six-person crew spent the rest of the afternoon filling jugs, rinsing them off, and placing them in the freezer. The children took turns ladling under Richard’s careful supervision. Efficiency was not their strong point. The children were clumsy, easily distracted, and frequently demanded to taste the cider as they worked. Richard would have no doubt been better off recruiting the help of his wife and sending the children off to play. However, the extra time didn’t seem to bother the older Henning. He genuinely enjoyed spending the time with the children and excepted the experience that they were gaining with him as adequate compensation for the decrease in efficiency. 

Finally, hours later, the cider was jugged and put away. The press was cleaned ad placed back into storage. The apple shreddings had been evenly distributed between the heifers and the compost pile, and the garden cart had been returned to its resting place. The five children followed their grandfather through the back door of his house trailer where he sat down on his workshop steps and took his shoes off. Richard stood at the top of the stair as his grandkids followed suit to ensure that none of them tracked sawdust and wood shavings into the house. Mary hated it when sawdust got tracked into the house.

“Are you done?” Mary inquired from the hallway.

“Yes,” Richard responded with a nod. “We’re all done.”

At one point, Richard had attached an electric motor to the crankshaft of the apple shredder on the cider press. I distinctly remember watching the shredding drum spin at an alarming rate as we tossed apples into the hopper from a safe distance. As the apples hit the shredding drum, chunks of apples and drops of juice flew off the wheel in every direction. It was an alarmingly humorous experience. One thing I can say about my grandpa is that he wasn’t afraid to try new things. However, he was also not afraid to scrap an idea that he felt wasn’t working. The next time we made cider, the motor was gone and the cranking wheel was back in its rightful place. It seems that Grandpa had decided that the increased efficiency wasn’t worth the safety issues involved with a shredding drum spinning as fast as it had under electric power.

Home School History Day

The Henning Five gathered in front of the Bookhouse and waited patiently for Mrs. Wood too unlock the door. The cool autumn breeze teased the blonde hair of the children. The Henning children were homeschooled. Being homeschooled had its advantages. One of those advantages was Homeschool History Day. On History Day, the five children dressed up as their favorite characters or professions from history. Caleb was dressed in a coonskin hat and a leather jacket with fringes up both sleeves as Daniel Boone. Scott was dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt and topped off his ensemble with a tattered cowboy hat and a red and white kerchief around his neck. Kelsey and Kerry were dressed as Mary and Laura Ingalls complete with homemade bonnets courtesy of their Grandma Stucky. Luke was dressed as a cowboy as well and his outfit closely mirrored his older brother’s. Christa did not dress up for history day. She was the mom and she could dress however she wanted.

 

The Henning family had chosen to spend their history day at the Bookhouse in Paris. The Bookhouse was a small building about ten feet wide by fourteen feet long. The was a skid style yard building with a small porch on the front that had been converted into a miniature library. The Bookhouse was owned and maintained by Mrs. Wood, a retired school teacher who had been responsible for part of Dale Henning’s early education. The Bookhouse, as its name suggests, was full of books. There were a number of built-in bookcases lining the walls including a bookcase that acted as a ladder to a small loft. The loft ran around three of the four walls and was also filled with books. There was a fake fireplace on the east wall. A rock that had been painted to look like a very realistic rabbit rested peacefully on the hearth. In a world designed for adults, a building built around children held a special draw for the kids. They loved it there.

Homeschool History Day did involve school work, otherwise it would just be called Home History Day. There were two or three desks and a small table in the Bookhouse where the children could work on their homework. They worked diligently on their studies as Christa drifted back and forth between the students and Mrs. Wood watched with a smile. They worked all morning until lunch time. Since it was History Day, the kids got to take the afternoon off. So, they packed up their books and supplies and put them in the van. 

They walked out to the west side of the Bookhouse where Caleb and Scott took turns striking matches on the box until they finally got a fire going. They added larger and larger pieces of wood to the growing flames until they were satisfied that the fire was big enough to serve their purpose. Christa had packed lunches for everybody, so they didn’t really need a fire. However, the cool fall air gave them the justification for such an indulgence. Besides, it was History Day. What was more historical than fire?

The children sat on the ground around the small fire as Christa and Mrs. Wood watched from their seat on couple of chairs. The children finished everything in their lunches except for their apples. 

“Hey,” Caleb addressed the group. “I wonder what these apples would taste like if we cooked them over the fire.”

“I don’t know,” Scott replied. “Hey Mom, can we cook our apples over the fire?”

“Sure,” Christa replied with a smile. “You’ll need some sticks to roast them with.”

Caleb and Scott walked around underneath some nearby trees in search of appropriate roasting sticks. They returned to the fire with several options in tow. Caleb, being the only child that was old enough to carry a pocket knife, set about sharpening the sticks for his siblings. He handed them out as they were done and then sharpened one for himself. He picked up his yellow delicious and pushed it carefully onto the sharp end of his roasting stick. his younger siblings watched carefully and proceeded to follow suit with the exception of Kerry. She took her apple and stick to her mother who was more than happy to skewer the apple for her accident-prone youngest. 

Before long, the smell of warm apples drifted in the autumn breeze. The skin of the apples bubbled and pulled away from the warm flesh. Scott pulled his back and looked it over before touching it with his index finger. He pulled his finger back sharply and smiled as his sibling.

“It’s hot!” he exclaimed.

“Duh,” Caleb replied. “You just had it over the fire.”

“Be careful, Scott,” Christa chided her other accident-prone child. “Don’t burn yourself.”

Scott just nodded in response and poked the apple again. It had cooled slightly since the first poke so he tested it again with his teeth. He took a tentative bite of the apple and tossed the hot morsel around in his mouth as he waited for it to cool. Finally, he was able to chew it up and swallow and declared that roasted apples were quite tasty. The rest of the children followed his example except that they were a little more patient and waited for the apple to cool a little more before consumption. Christa just sat back and enjoyed her fresh cider with Mrs. Wood as she watched her children.