From my earliest recollections, a visit at Moccasin was the delight of my life. After a day's ride in a horse drawn wagon, and often some walking, over the Sand Dunes, past Chris' Spring and Blue Knolls, we would eagerly watch to catch sight of the double row of huge, age old poplar trees that formed a shady lane leading to Aunt Lucy's and Uncle Jonathan's house. The family at Moccasin was dear to me and the house at Moccasin was as dear as my own home. If the extra company crowded the rooms, no one seemed to mind it. At least I didn't feel it if they did. We always arrived in the evening and were soon hustled off to bed. The clean restful beds in the upstairs, south bedroom were so inviting. It was pleasing to me to be in the room with Esther, Zidie, Lucy, and Ella. Yes, two big beds held all of us. At times there were three in each bed. Work filled days were conductive to sleep. Especially in this desert edged, mountain protected, lovely ranch.
Usually, my family was at Moccasin in the fall of the year when this mild climate and rich loamy soil had produced bumper crops of vegetables and fruits. Fruit canning, or bottling days, were approached with regimental preparation. Usually, the men folks picked the peaches, but often the girls helped. The just right peaches and grapes were hauled in from the orchards buckets and tubs overflowing.
The day before bottling was the "get ready day". What seemed to me the most important task, and in my young eyes the hardest, was the washing of the bottles.
In the big kitchen early the next morning, breakfast work already done, tubs of luscious peaches were being washed. My mother and Aunt Lucy were seated with pans of peaches and paring knives - each peeling as fast as industrious women, who are used to this kind of work, and are capable of. What a difference in these two wonderful sisters. Aunt Lucy, large of form, and larger still of heart and wisdom, serene and measured in movement, making every turn of the hand and knife count. My mother, Aunt Vine, small tireless and quick in movement, They could peel peaches fast enough to keep two girls, usually Esther and Zidie, putting the cooked peaches in bottles and sealing them. Lucy kept busy just refilling the big cooking pans on the stove and keeping the fire box stuffed and roaring with heat.
At 11 a.m., part of the stove and one grown girl was released from the fruit process to cook a hot meal for the workingmen and the dozen or so of us who were always hungry in spite of the fruit nibbling.
Promptly at 12 noon, one of us kids was sent across the back door yard and up the grainery steps to swing up and down on the sturdy rope that put the dinner bell to clapping. How I loved to ring that bell, or how eagerly we waited to hear it if we were away to the gardens, reservoirs, or fields.
It meant that when we arrived at the house, if we hurried, there would be a delicious home cooked dinner, steaming hot on the big dining table, which sat parallel to the bay window thru which the sun shone all day on Aunt Lucy's potted flowers.
Dinner was always seasoned with a certain amount of family comradery and laughter, but no loafing after. The dishes were cleared away, washed, dried, and put into the old fashioned cupboard, floors swept up and the deck was cleared for more fruit doing.
When night came, there were two hundred quarts of bottled peaches, gleaming yellow and washed of all stickiness, cooling, ready to be boxed and hauled away. Fruit for the Moccasin family was stored.
After a long, hot day, I tagged along with the other girls to the round reservoir for the cooling, cleansing, and much-earned swim. Everyone could swim except for me. I paddled in the shallow edge.
Day followed day of doing peaches, grapes, tomatoes, until there was a surplus of food for the year. It was all put to good use, too, for travelers found Moccasin a convenient stopping place, and were always given the hospitality of good food and a bed to sleep in, plus care for their tired horses.
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