By Patricia A. Hawkenson with Celia Rhodes Photography
Image #3
My shoe kicks a rusted empty can of udder balm. It rolls down the cement gutter that years ago ran with a mixture of water, cow urine, and manure. Today there is no smell, no echo. The arching beams of the barn are gone. Only one crumbling side of the half stone wall is left.
I have to pull the scent of silage from my memory, along with cow bells and the crack of loving slaps on the cows’ backsides when the milking was done, because Grandpa and Grandma have been dead and buried for years now.
I could stand here for a life time telling you about what was here. Heck, our whole lives were here. One day, after one day, went by until they all slipped away and crumbled into the bits and pieces that I have to struggle to remember.
But I know there was a cardboard box of newborn kittens wailing open-mouthed waiting for Grandpa to grab a teat and send them a warm squirt - while their mother purred, casually brushing up against the rough corduroy gutters of my pants.
Everyone was too busy to care if my pants needed another patch, or not. There were grubs to pick off the cabbages, axe handles to sharpen at the grindstone, fly-strips to hang and twirl in the sweltering breezes of the screened-in porch, and hot or not, a pie to bake in the woodstove. And I had to find just the right rump switch that would coax the cows back to the barn while the hired hands continued the haying.
At the end of the day the rafter was full to overflowing with our hot August labors while cool mason jars of ginger water dripped their condensation down into twisting gutters on our dusty faces.
My own supper of the beans I helped to snap was peppered with laughter, and outbursts, and my uncle’s hand slapping down on the table for emphasis. We had to eat fast if we wanted seconds, or before the grownups decided we had enough, and yes, it was time to get up to bed – even if the sun was still peeking at us under the kitchen curtain.
I would fall asleep hearing bits and pieces of their conversations that drifted up between the floor vent’s slats, and it would jumble my dreams until they made no sense.
Today, there are no dreams, no echoes, no smells.
Shit. It’s all gone. And that really stinks.
Image #3
My shoe kicks a rusted empty can of udder balm. It rolls down the cement gutter that years ago ran with a mixture of water, cow urine, and manure. Today there is no smell, no echo. The arching beams of the barn are gone. Only one crumbling side of the half stone wall is left.
I have to pull the scent of silage from my memory, along with cow bells and the crack of loving slaps on the cows’ backsides when the milking was done, because Grandpa and Grandma have been dead and buried for years now.
I could stand here for a life time telling you about what was here. Heck, our whole lives were here. One day, after one day, went by until they all slipped away and crumbled into the bits and pieces that I have to struggle to remember.
But I know there was a cardboard box of newborn kittens wailing open-mouthed waiting for Grandpa to grab a teat and send them a warm squirt - while their mother purred, casually brushing up against the rough corduroy gutters of my pants.
Everyone was too busy to care if my pants needed another patch, or not. There were grubs to pick off the cabbages, axe handles to sharpen at the grindstone, fly-strips to hang and twirl in the sweltering breezes of the screened-in porch, and hot or not, a pie to bake in the woodstove. And I had to find just the right rump switch that would coax the cows back to the barn while the hired hands continued the haying.
At the end of the day the rafter was full to overflowing with our hot August labors while cool mason jars of ginger water dripped their condensation down into twisting gutters on our dusty faces.
My own supper of the beans I helped to snap was peppered with laughter, and outbursts, and my uncle’s hand slapping down on the table for emphasis. We had to eat fast if we wanted seconds, or before the grownups decided we had enough, and yes, it was time to get up to bed – even if the sun was still peeking at us under the kitchen curtain.
I would fall asleep hearing bits and pieces of their conversations that drifted up between the floor vent’s slats, and it would jumble my dreams until they made no sense.
Today, there are no dreams, no echoes, no smells.
Shit. It’s all gone. And that really stinks.