My father is one of six siblings. His father is one of eight or nine siblings. My father’s mother is one of eight or ten siblings. Once upon a time, my Grandfather’s family and my Grandmother’s family were next door neighbors. They lived in the country. At some point, the families moved to town but the land and the farm house remained.
This was where my grandfather and grandmother would spend every summer in the blistering Arkansas heat without any electricity or any running water. Also, this served as a deer camp for the family. I have childhood memories of everybody coming to the place, hanging out, and waiting to hear tales of the “next buck.”
In the distance, you can see a barn. There was hay in the barn and it also held tractors and whatnot. Back in the day, there were a gazillion cats living in that barn. There was also a smokehouse to the left of this shot. There is also a chicken house.
This is the chicken house. My grandmother didn’t eat eggs from a store until well into old age.
Now one of my Dad’s sisters keeps her chickens out there.
Of course, without running water, there is a well. This is ours.
In the kitchen, pretty much everything was just put on the wall. You can see the water pump which was installed at some point to bring in water.
She cooked with a wood burning stove. My Dad still gets a kick out of cooking on that thing when we come visit.
With no running water, there is also no toilets. This is the outhouse. Oh craziness. its’ behind the chicken yard and directly behind the chicken coop from the farm house. So technically, no one could see you even if you left the door open.
Now my father is one of six kids and that ends up being a lot of people for Easter. One of my Dad’s sisters had five kids of her own. The first one of those kids had three kids. Now the oldest one of those three kids has two kids. You can see where I’m going with this. It is absolute chaos. So each “BIG FAMILY” celebration is potluck. Each member of the family brings a dish. The sister who had no kids and hates to cook ends up bringing drinks and the plates and utensils. It ends up being a crazy time.
There’s always dressing as in the big batch of cornbread stuffing that is usually eaten on Thanksgiving in most households. Then there is the dish known as “Dorito chicken” It’s the whitest of white trash of casseroles. It consists of boiled chicken that is then shredded, velveeta (the fake cheese product), Doritos, cream of mushroom soup, Rotel tomatoes, cream of chicken (I think) soup, and that’s it. I think. It’s been a while. Anyway, it ends up being mixed up and then baked until bubbly. This dish is sponsored by lipitor.
Yes there was Easter Egg hunting.
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