By Lula Anderson
Autumn is officially here and the leaves are getting crunchy. It's time to go out and shuffle through the newly fallen leaves and breathe in the scent of fall. Did you all catch the Harvest Moon last week? It was pretty hard not to see it was so bright. Jay L leaves the house in Jewett at 5 AM and with the moonlight, the fog rolling in and the coyotes howling, he had the sensation of being in a horror movie. It brings to mind the folk tales of Indian Summer with the rolling fog being the spirits of ancestors swirling and dancing. Have you ever seen fog roll in? I was sitting on a stone wall once in my youth and watched the fog roll across an open field. A totally spooky experience. I drive down the mountain from Jewett and as you pass the old quarry, I look at the mountains changing color bit by bit. I remember when there was a "star tree" at the top of the mountain. I always wanted to hike and see it, but my practical sister said it was just a group of trees that formed that incredible sight. I still hope to get a glimpse of it, but that was over 60 years ago, and it is only a memory.
Thanks to all for your support for the East Jewett UMC Italian Smorgasbord. The food was superb. It's alway good to get together with someone and eat. Don't forget combined services of the Mountain Top UMC parishes is always the 5th Sunday, and will be held in East Jewett on September 29 at 10 AM.
Prayers for Connie Carter on the passing of husband Rick. They are from Tannersville and currently living in Florida.
Get well prayers for Chrissy Thorington after surgery and all those having treatments or surgery
AS I REMEMBER IT
While attending the Italian buffet dinner at East Jewett I spoke with Gerry Loucks about the novel way they were collecting their free will donations. A large container was by the door and very few people could recognize what this unique object was. Gerry is very into antiques and memorabilia, and he put out an old milk separator for the collection pot. What is a milk separator you ask. Before homogenization, milk, when left to sit, will settle with the cream rising to the top and the skim milk dropping to the bottom. When you have small amounts, you can let the milk sit and skim the cream from the top. Without refrigeration, letting it set made much sour milk, so larger farms had a separator.
My Aunt and Uncle lived in East Windham, and, as many farm houses back then, had a back room that was connected to the kitchen where they kept the tools needed for daily use. Garden hoes, shovels, etc were kept here, but also the separator. After the cows were milked, my uncle would bring in the cans and put the milk through the separator. A handle would start the bowl spinning, and the heavier cream would come out of one spout while the lighter milk would come out the other. The cream would be put into a churn and Aunt would churn it into butter. A small stream ran through the basement, and the butter would be put into a sealed container and put into the stream. If there was plenty of butter, collage cheese and sour cream would be made to sell. So many local farm wives would make butter to sell to their neighbors for the extra money. Many had special molds that would shape the butter into one pound blocks, some decorative for the dinner table.
Because of the stream running through the cellar, the shed was always cool. There was a large box hanging from the ceiling with a screen on the front which we called a "pie box." Anything that needed to be cool would be placed in there to protect it from scavengers. Many farms and larger houses had spring houses, and some examples can still be seen in the area. This was even before the houses had ice boxes. There was always an ingenious was to keep things cool. Now we panic when we lose power because of our refrigerators.
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