In the fall we dried and roasted pumpkin

In the fall we dried and roasted pumpkin and Blue Hubbard squash seeds. Just salt them heavily and put on a cookie sheet in the oven. We popped corn in the iron skillet with bacon fat or margarine as the necessary ingredient to prevent burning of the corn and to impart that “down home” flavor. Plenty of salt was applied – it’s a miracle we did not cause an epidemic of high blood pressure! Corn was popped and strung at Christmas time as a tree decoration. A sewing needle and thread were used for this task.
The favorite (and most economically priced) beverage at our house was home made root beer. Hires extract was readily available at any super market. Add plenty of sugar and a yeast cake that had been dissolved in warm water at 100 degree F. and you were set to go. We saved our Simpson Spring bottles and forewent the five cent deposit return money, so we could use and reuse those bottles for root beer.  The filled bottles were then capped by hand with a capping device and allowed to set up for a couple weeks. Occasionally one of the bottles would explode and make a mess in the cellar, but the very fizzy drink was a big favorite.
When working at Gracie Farm, Frank Gracie gave his help a mixture of one half cold raw milk and one half Simpson Spring Golden Ginger Ale. This was a great combo. My mom made sun tea regularly in the warm months. She just put a large clear glass jar filled with well water in the sun with a few tea bags inside. After a few hours it was ready to be iced and drunk.
We raised a good portion of the meat we ate. If we slaughtered a hog, we might share it with another family. This would frequently be the Raymond Webber family on Bay Road. We raised about fifty sheep at the Webber place one year and wound up eating a lot of lamb for a while. We sold the excess, but always seemed to lose money on what ever animal we raised. Ducks, geese and turkeys were regular fare.
I recall the year we slaughtered a hog that must have weighed 300 pounds. Ted Harlow stunned the animal with his twenty two rifle and my dad and another guy slit the critter’s throat. Most back yards at that time had a chain falls with which to pull car engines and this implement was used to haul the huge carcass up so it could be eviscerated.