Cabbage

(By way of explanation: My daughter, M______, is constantly reminding me that my Blog is B-O-R-I-N-G! She feels it would be much better if I shared my feelings, rather than what I made for dinner. However, I am rather old-school (being old) in that I like to keep my feelings to myself, and would hesitate writing them down in a private journal, much less posting them on the Internet.

So, I came up with a compromise. Every now and then, I will post something I remember from the past (good or bad). As with any person, there are many, many things about my past I would not want my children to know, so these juicier tidbits will NOT be included. Indeed, I plan on taking those to my grave. But, hopefully, the things I write will be of some interest... Let me know, please.)

A few years after my Father's death, Luanne, a very young Jeremy and I moved back to my Mother's house (the old farmhouse I was raised in). The theory was we would share expenses, Mom would have company and upon her death (writing this now is funny, since I will undoubtedly die first), we would buy the house.

So, I busily started turning the four acres into a homestead. I put a new roof on the chicken house and divided it into a section for chickens and a stall for milk goats (which we never got). I also fenced a large area for pigs (which we did get).

Now the farm was originally 40 acres, but my Dad had sold 36 of them back in the 1950's. The truck farmer down the road later leased the tillable land, and that year had planted cabbages. During the harvest, I noticed they were leaving a LOT of cabbages, so I asked him why. He said they weren't "marketable" which meant they were too small, or split on the top, etc., and that if I wanted them, I could have them.

So, I researched all my homesteading books and found a suggested way to store cabbages over the winter. You dug the cabbages up, root and all. Then you dug an 18 inch deep trench and put the cabbages in upside down, not quite touching each other. You filled the dirt back in loosely and then covered the whole thing with about two feet of straw.

When you wanted a cabbage, you knocked off the snow, pushed back the straw, grabbed the exposed root and pulled it out. The first time I retrieved a cabbage, it looked disgusting and I thought all my work was for nothing! The outer leaves were brown and wilted. But, following instructions, I pulled off the leaves until I got to the green ones and, lo and behold, there was a wonderfully sweet (and free) cabbage inside.

We ate them all winter...