Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Pick'n Cotton, Eat'n Rice

Funny how something will bring back a memory when you least expect it.
Last night I was making Green Chile with Pork, it's one of Pat's favorites. We like to have it over rice. While it was simmering good, Pat put on some water for some instant brown rice, I usually cook up the long grain variety, but just happened to have this on hand. I dished me up a small bowl of the green chile, just sampling it. Put some mexi-cheese on it and had some fritos on hand......well, it was pretty good and I ended up eating a couple "small" bowls....yum....
Pat went to get his shower and I tended to the rice.
As I was stirring it I remembered, growing up and when living with my mom, us kids would cook up rice, cornmeal mush, or oatmeal for breakfast. I liked butter and sugar on mine.
Well, the brown rice brought back a childhood memory, so I couldn't resist and dished me up a bowl with the butter and sugar, just like a kid. It was sooooo good.
Thought about places we lived in New Mexico. I visited a few of those places several years ago while there on a visit with my dad. My brother drove us by a place in the country, I don't know if I would have remembered how to find it. Back then they grew a lot of cotton there. We lived on a "farm" where there were huge cotton fields. I remember when we first moved there we spent a lot of time "picking up rocks", my brother usually drove the tractor that pulled a flatbed trailer and us kids would walk along side and pick up rocks to throw on the trailer, to clean the fields for planting. I remember the hand irrigation, trenching and blocking the direction of the water so the fields could be soaked and watered. There was a "tank" ( in the south they call a large hole for storing water a tank, in Colorado that would be known as a reservoir) that the well would pump water into and from that we would irrigate the fields. Our household water was a large, wooden trough or tank built on a tower ( for water pressure I suppose), the well would pump water into that and that would supply the house with water......I remember that sometimes someone would forget to shut the pump off and that tank would be a waterfall pouring down, always seem to cause commotion with the folks, but it was just a marvel to me to see so much water spilling over the sides.
So, on this farm.....we had the big cotton fields and we learned to pick cotton. My mom was always a hard worker and she instilled that trait in most of her children. We would spend hot days in the sun, dragging a cotton sack, wearing blisters on our hands or hole thru our gloves, pickin' cotton. We picked right along with the black workers. There was one big guy who always had the most "weight" picked. They would weigh your bags from a scale hanging on the side of the wooden cotton trailers, write it down, empty your bag and back to the field you would go.
One particular day stands out in my mind, the day my mom out picked the big guy!!! I guess there was a "competition" going on and momma won it that day.

So there you have it, a memory of "pick'n cotton and eat'n rice.

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Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Pick'n Cotton, Eat'n Rice

Funny how something will bring back a memory when you least expect it.
Last night I was making Green Chile with Pork, it's one of Pat's favorites. We like to have it over rice. While it was simmering good, Pat put on some water for some instant brown rice, I usually cook up the long grain variety, but just happened to have this on hand. I dished me up a small bowl of the green chile, just sampling it. Put some mexi-cheese on it and had some fritos on hand......well, it was pretty good and I ended up eating a couple "small" bowls....yum....
Pat went to get his shower and I tended to the rice.
As I was stirring it I remembered, growing up and when living with my mom, us kids would cook up rice, cornmeal mush, or oatmeal for breakfast. I liked butter and sugar on mine.
Well, the brown rice brought back a childhood memory, so I couldn't resist and dished me up a bowl with the butter and sugar, just like a kid. It was sooooo good.
Thought about places we lived in New Mexico. I visited a few of those places several years ago while there on a visit with my dad. My brother drove us by a place in the country, I don't know if I would have remembered how to find it. Back then they grew a lot of cotton there. We lived on a "farm" where there were huge cotton fields. I remember when we first moved there we spent a lot of time "picking up rocks", my brother usually drove the tractor that pulled a flatbed trailer and us kids would walk along side and pick up rocks to throw on the trailer, to clean the fields for planting. I remember the hand irrigation, trenching and blocking the direction of the water so the fields could be soaked and watered. There was a "tank" ( in the south they call a large hole for storing water a tank, in Colorado that would be known as a reservoir) that the well would pump water into and from that we would irrigate the fields. Our household water was a large, wooden trough or tank built on a tower ( for water pressure I suppose), the well would pump water into that and that would supply the house with water......I remember that sometimes someone would forget to shut the pump off and that tank would be a waterfall pouring down, always seem to cause commotion with the folks, but it was just a marvel to me to see so much water spilling over the sides.
So, on this farm.....we had the big cotton fields and we learned to pick cotton. My mom was always a hard worker and she instilled that trait in most of her children. We would spend hot days in the sun, dragging a cotton sack, wearing blisters on our hands or hole thru our gloves, pickin' cotton. We picked right along with the black workers. There was one big guy who always had the most "weight" picked. They would weigh your bags from a scale hanging on the side of the wooden cotton trailers, write it down, empty your bag and back to the field you would go.
One particular day stands out in my mind, the day my mom out picked the big guy!!! I guess there was a "competition" going on and momma won it that day.

So there you have it, a memory of "pick'n cotton and eat'n rice.

No comments: