Last of the summer bounty (fruits, sweet, eat, winter)

[ArkansasSlim]

A few days ago we picked the last of our Asian Persimmons and tonight we dined on out last cushaw. While enjoying that treat I got to remembering how my farming grandparents kept and preserved their summer bounty to get us through the winter. Irish and sweet potato's were plowed up and spread out on the floor of the potato house, making sure they didn't touch because that would cause them to spoil. Peanuts were plowed up and hung from the rafters of the hay loft and in the winter when the weather was too bad to work outside we would pull the nuts from the vine. Onions were pulled up and hung from the rafters of the root/storm cellar. The fall fruits were canned or dried and the fall vegies were also. Shelling those dried bean pods was murder to our fingers. We never had beef but always had pork with the hams, shoulders, and sides (bacon) hanging in the smokehouse where Papa would smoke them with green hickory wood. I loved to go out there and cut off a thin slice of that smoked meat and eat it on the spot. And the fatty parts were cut into small pieces and cooked in the wash pot to make lard and the meat became "cracklins" and was a wonderful ingredient in cornbread. Wonderful memories but would I like to go back to the "good old days"? No way! They are wonderful memories but I'm satisfied to dwell on those memories, not re-live them.