Two pies made from a pumpkin I grew and apples saved from our trees. I live on a city lot. No grass in the backyard any longer. Gardens for produce.

City tax. County tax. State tax. You’re trapped as you need electricity. Wasn’t like this in Illinois or Indiana.

She came by later with a bottle of white wine. I can’t drink it, can you? Well, heck yeah. I just finished baking bread. Would you like a loaf? Heck yeah. We laughed and traded. She loves my homemade loaves. I think she smelled it baking during our first trade. Face to face relationships matter.

Originally from Chicagoland area.

She would trade her stock with others. Who has peach trees? She had the best apples. Guess who got to pick them but only off the ground. Made the best jams and pie fillings.

Her back yard was a garden. No grass. What we didn’t eat fresh, she canned. Food all winter. She always had her flower gardens. We need beauty, she said. She grew flowers she could make into medicine. Made her own blackberry brandy for colds. We got dosed first with that and Vicks under our nose.

She raised chickens. Fresh eggs. When they got old, chop off their heads, dunk in cold water to remove feathers easier. Pluck. Sunday dinner, soup, chicken and dumplings. Chicken salad sandwiches to barter with.

She also carried extra sandwiches in her big old purse, wrapped in wax paper. She would trade those sandwiches with men looking for work. Rake her yard, trim bushes.

She taught me how to make large mats using plastic bags and a single crochet stitch. Warmer than rugs. Rinse and reuse. Saves your washing machine. I can can, sew, quilt from rags, make my own cleaners. Make friends with people who have fruit trees. Jam, pie filling. Make simple meals.

She also said, buy from local farmers only what’s in season. Trade for what you need. Save cardboard. Reuse everything. Use bread wrappers instead of boots. Warmer. Keep your feet dry. She was green before it was popular.

I feel the most important thing I can do is keep us healthy. Can’t afford to be sick. Healthy food we grow ourselves, home remedies passed down through generations without visiting the doctor. Grandma said, pay the grocer you won’t have to pay the doctor.

Other countries respect old folk and their wisdom. Here in the US, they are dismissed. Invisible. Hubby and I can survive hard times. We have before using the lessons we learned from our grandparents. Young folk? They will moan and cry. Poor know how to survive. They’ve always survived.

Hubby’s grandpa taught him how to repair anything. They knew history repeats itself. My grandma said, if they listened to the old folk and learned from them, history wouldn’t repeat itself in generations. They don’t do we follow the same old paths.