Old Ways and New Ways, Exfoliating and Taking Lunch to the Corral
(or, My Spicy Life)
~They~ say that variety is the spice of life, and if ~they~ are right, then my life, indeed, would be classified as spicy. My life is very varied.
Yesterday, I ran. From here to there and to everywhere, I ran. In between running from here, before running to there, I listened to a phone message:
“Sis, if you still want to find some mushrooms, come on over…I found some.”
Long and disappointed sigh….it is the phone call I’d been awaiting for years. A neighbor (not my brother…”sis” is a friendly term used by many men here in the Ozarks to address a woman acquaintance) had long ago promised to show me how to find morels. I’ve searched and searched the woods and valleys and creeksides, all to no avail. I wouldn’t see one if it jumped up and bit me. And now…now is my chance! But, alas, commitments have been made and can not be broken. So off I run again, longing to be finding mushrooms instead.
Get home, stand in the kitchen, deciding what to cook for supper (wishing the menu could include morels), and the phone rings again.
“Those mushrooms won’t keep any longer, Sis. If you want them, you’d better come and get them.”
Excitement springs anew in my heart! It still may happen!
“Honey, do you want me to cook supper or do you want me to take a mushroom-hunting lesson?”
“Go!!! Hurry!!! I don’t care about supper–just find some mushrooms!”
The farmboy is dealing with a nagging back ailment and didn’t feel like joining the hunt, so off I go.
Down, down, down to their place, down into a deep, deep holler.
Pass this little cabin. Know I have to hurry but can’t resist stopping and taking a quick pic….love, love these old relics.
They, along with six or so dogs, meet me in the driveway of their home cabin, built from logs they had cut and stacked into a sweet little house. Probably 100 gourds hang from the porch rafters. She says, “I’m going to make bird houses out of them when I get time.” Some chickens scratch around, making me feel welcome. Vintage automobiles are tucked out back and down the lane, ready to be restored … valuable ones, like a ’32 Ford coupe and a ’66 Dodge Charger with a 440 engine and an old Suburban, one he uses for parts for his best Suburban, a ’51 model, that he drives to town. I really would like to have one just like his … so cool.
He hands me a stick and says, “We’ll walk up this way.”
She says, “Are you warm enough?” for the sunlight is long gone in this deep valley.
“I’m too excited to be cold!” say I, eager to start.
We pick our way up a dry creekbed, one that rushes full when the big rains come. Past a small pen with a mare inside, one he says will foal this weekend. She bulges and looks rather miserable. There is a 12-ft length of metal pipe coming out of the hillside, spouting a steady stream of water into a trough for her. This mare gets to drink of the finest Ozark spring water. Perrier would be jealous.
He points out the abundance of May apples, hundreds of little umbrellas covering the flat places, and says mushrooms like the same sort of ground. And she points out the slippery-bark elm trees growing all along the creekbed. Another good mushroom sign.
We walk on, and he says, “Use your stick to help you see.”
I ask what he means, and he says, “It may sound crazy but it works. Point your stick at the ground and your eye will follow it and see what is at the end.” Sure enough, he is right.
After ten minutes, he says, “There are mushrooms here. See if you can see one. Be careful and don’t step on it”
I look, to no avail. Look and look, and see leaves and beautiful wildflowers and rocks and twigs, but no morels.
He points with his stick and says, “Look harder.”
And then I see! THREE BEAUTIFUL MUSHROOMS, in a little cluster.
If you happened to be up that holler or even over on the other side of the ridge, you might have heard me shout, “I see them!!”
He draws a deep breath and tries to be patient, reminding me to look closely because there are more. They let me pick all I find,
carefully placing them in the bag I brought, pointing out all the details surrounding us.
She says, “Hon, we’ve found the ticks, too,” pulling up a pant leg and retrieving a surprisingly quick hitchhiker.
I say, “I don’t care, it’s worth it. Tell me more.”
They do. I learn about spicewood, and how she cans poke greens. The man who lived in the valley before them lived to be over 100, his dad lived to be 107 and his grandpa died at 126. Yes, ma’am. Could it have been the water? It is suggested I go to the local cemetery and see if there are dates on stones, to verify that claim. I am instructed to soak the morels for a few minutes in salt water to be sure all the tiny bugs are washed out. A black bear used to cross the lane just below their cabin on a regular basis, but they haven’t seen him in a couple of years. They were married in the old Ford coupe. He was a firejumper in Montana as a young man, before she got him into that ’32 and talked him into finding a preacher. This tree in their yard is Edith, named for the old lady in whose yard it was dug. That one is named for their oldest daughter, for they planted it the year she was born. The barn in the back yard used to be filled with bleachers and on Saturday nights men would pour into the holler, filling the barn with fighting roosters, smoke and…who knows what. That was before fighting roosters was outlawed.
By the time I absorb all that education, it is dark, and past time to head home. Thanks are profuse….I have loved every single minute.
At the house, I soak, slice and fry a dozen of the most gorgeous mushrooms ever. And as I stand in the kitchen, eating them fresh from the skillet, I feel something crawling at my ankle. I bend over, peer at my sock and find that I, too, have picked up some unwanted hitchhikers.
I flee to a hot shower where I scrub and scrub until my skin is red. And as I stand under the fine spray, enjoying the warmth, I realize that “exfoliate” is simply a fancy-shmancy term for a good scrubbin’. Remember the ones your mama gave you, at the end of a hot, summer day, when you played outside all day, got hot and dirty and really weren’t fit for anything until you got into that tub and endured a powerful, skin-peeling wash? I remember. But I also think about just a generation before me, when kids didn’t have the luxury of hot water running out of the faucet. Water would be drawn or hauled to the house, heated on a wood-burning stove and poured into a tub, and turns would be taken.
The old ways are longed for and lovingly remembered….and the new ways are appreciated and well-practiced.
[All that remains of the barn that was built by the great-great-great-grandfather of my grandchildren.]
Now for Part Two, that part about lunch:
It is nearly noon when I get the call: “We can’t stop what we’re doing–bring my lunch, please.” Hurriedly, I pack sandwiches, cookies, quart jars of tea, chips, a little bowl of fruit and put it into a cooler. Jump in my truck. Forget…run back inside and grab my camera. Fly over to where they are testing bulls.
[This is the location of lunch today.]
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