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This morning, when I sat down to drink my coffee, I noticed the wild strawberry design on the cup. Instantly my thoughts were transported to our upper pasture land on the mountain in Virginia. Lots of wild strawberries used to grow there. That was seventy some years ago.

My older sister, Pearl, and I were on our way to find the strawberry patch our dad had told us about. There were three ways to get to our mountain property. That day, my sister and I traveled the longest route, walking up a narrow dirt lane called the Old House Road. We passed by a small cemetery and two wooden houses, one big and one little. The road became steeper going up by the waterfalls. The water rushing over the rocks made quite a noise around in the holler, but we couldn’t see it for the trees.

Above the falls there was a log house in good condition, but no one lived there. All of these old homes are empty. The young people who had lived here left the mountains to find good jobs or join the military. The old folks had also moved away or lived out their lives in this beautiful place. Up ahead we could see another log house and a bigger cemetery. Before we got that far, we cut to the right over a gentle hill and through some woods. Then we passed the old log house where my great aunt used to live. Under the limber twig apple tree, across a split rail fence, and there we were in a field facing south.

The big patch of wild strawberries was just where Dad said it would be. A little spring of fresh water was bubbling out of the hill just below the patch. After our morning walk in the hot June sun, we were thirsty and the cool water was very refreshing. My sister and I carried two buckets each with our dinner in one of them. We had sausage biscuits to eat. We also had glass jelly jars half full of cream with sugar and an extra biscuit to crumble in it. Our jars were placed in the little spring to cool while we ate sausage biscuits and picked one bucket of berries each. Later, when we sat down to finish our lunch, we capped strawberries into our jars of cream and sugar and crumbled in the extra biscuit. Fresh wild strawberries in cold cream with sugar and biscuit, stir with your spoon and eat. There is no other taste under the sun quite like that. It is so good. Our dinner (lunch) was more special because of our beautiful surroundings – the water gurgling in the little spring, warm sunshine on our faces, a gentle breeze, birds singing, the buzz of a honey bee’s wings as it visited a late strawberry bloom and white fluffy clouds drifting across the blue sky. That was the beauty of our day on the mountain.

It was time to fill our other buckets. The strawberries were big and it didn’t take long. Mom had told us, “Pick the stems, too, if all the berries are ripe. Then they won’t pack down in your bucket.” Coming off the mountain we took the shortest way down through the valley. The narrow dirt path we followed went past a house where a family still lived. They had several small kids. We could see the children playing over on the hill. My sister, Pearl, said softly, “Walk real fast and don’t rattle your buckets.” “Why?” I whispered loudly. About that time the rocks began whizzing past and I knew why. One hit my sister’s bucket with a ping, but they didn’t hit us. That would have hurt. Most little boys like throwing rocks. I guess they were glad to have moving targets. We hurried on and soon we were back home. A bit sunburned and very tired. Mom said, “Your berries are packed down a little.” We didn’t say anything, just glad to be home. Those strawberries made the best preserves and were so good to eat. I treasure the memories of my sister and I picking wild strawberries on the mountain.

Almost everyone loves old barns, I know I do. Quite a few of them still stand over the countryside. They are all different; showing various styles, strengths and personalities. Whether red, brown, white or gray and weathered, each one is special. Some have happy faces, others stand strong in times of change, while a few of them have given way to weakness and old age. All have histories – stories of the animals and people they have known. Our old barn was medium size. It had an oak frame and was covered in wide oak and chestnut boards. Weathered and gray, it had sheltered our family’s livestock for many years. The barn knew our good seasons and our bad. Some dramatic scenes happened in and around the barn.

My sister, Carrie, and her young boy, Sonny, had come to visit us. He had just turned four and loved to visit Grandma and Grandpa and see all the animals on the farm. I was thirteen years old and had chores to do that evening. Mom told me to go up to the barnyard and give the old hen with the diddles some cornbread and put them in the coop for the night. On my way into the barn to check for hen eggs, I walked past the old rooster and two hens. They were scratching in some hay that had been dropped. Before I turned the corner, I saw Dad and his little grandson walking up that way.

The barnyard was so quiet that evening. When I stepped into the hallway I noticed a special aura about the old building. Late afternoon sun rays streamed in between the wide oak boards. Old Bonnie, our horse, was in her stall resting after a hard day of work. The barn cat sat quietly in the shadows waiting to surprise a mouse. I was thinking how peaceful the setting was, when the tranquility of the evening was shattered by gunfire. As I rushed out of the barn the screaming grew louder. There I found my Dad pulling our old white rooster off his little grandson. The six shooters were still smoking. The rooster was unharmed, but just as mad as an old wet hen. Dad spared the rooster’s life because he was the only one we had. The side of Sonny’s face was bleeding some. Between sobs he told me, “Grandpa said for me to go up there and shoot that old rooster and we would have chicken and dumplings for supper.” Brave boy that he was, Sonny marched forward with both guns blazing – pow, pow, pow, pow, pow. But his two cap busters were no match for the big white rooster. Sonny said, “All I saw was a bunch of white feathers flying at me.” That old rooster flogged that poor youngin something terrible. It’s been many years now, but Sonny still remembers our old white rooster. Laughing, he said, “Maybe a child should not do everything their grandpa tells them. Grandma never would have told me to do something like that.” Another story from the old barnyard.

Horses are beautiful animals. Some of them have a grace and form that is striking. I love to watch them when they run across the field with their mane and tail flowing in the wind. It is almost poetic. Then there was Bonnie, our old brown work horse. There was nothing graceful about her. Of course, I only knew Bonnie when she was old and blind in one eye. But she is worthy of a short story. Being the youngest in my family, I had heard many stories about the good service Old Bonnie had given over the years. My dad said it seemed as if she knew what to do without being told. My older brothers and Old Bonnie worked hard helping Dad on the farm. They plowed and prepared the ground for planting crops and garden. Then came the harvest. They hauled the yield to storage in the barn, granary, corn crib and cellar with Bonnie pulling the sled.

Old Bonnie helped get our wood supply for winter. My dad and the boys would go up the hill behind our house and cut down some trees using cross cut saws. Then they trimmed the limbs off and the log was hooked to Old Bonnie. She pulled it off the hill to the woodshed. There, it was cut into sticks of wood for heating. When my four older brothers were drafted into the military during World War II, my youngest brother Carl and my sisters had to take their place. They worked with Dad and Old Bonnie and never had a problem with the horse. Orba, Carrie and Pearl hooked her up to a wooden sled and went to our upper pasture land in Virginia. There, they picked buckets full of blackberries, loaded them on the sled and Bonnie took them to Great Uncle John’s store to sell. Mom expected them to buy clothes or shoes. Nope! They went straight to my Great Uncle Isam’s house and bought a big pump organ from Aunt Lanta. Old Bonnie brought that home on the sled, too.

My sister, Pearl, used to put a sack of corn that she had shelled off the cob across Old Bonnie’s back. And then rode her quite aways down Helton Creek to a mill where the corn was ground into cornmeal. It was a little coarse and had to be sifted, but it made good cornbread. I loved to eat the crust with butter while it was still hot. Old Bonnie’s reputation remained untarnished until she ripped the seat out of my brother Clarence’s pants. She got a hold with her teeth and just pulled. I don’t know if she was paying him back for something or what? Pearl said Old Bonnie laughed about what she had done. But I don’t think Clarence laughed at all.

After my brothers and sisters left home, it was my turn to work with Old Bonnie helping Dad. My experience with horses was none. I always avoided Bonnie because she looked at me with her good eye like she didn’t like me. Old Bonnie had worked hard all week. On Friday, Dad had her hooked to a big square metal harrow to work up the ground on the hill. At twelve years old, I thought I was big enough to guide Bonnie around the field with the harrow. Wrong. The horse went too far up in the corner before I pulled on the reins. She turned to the left too sharp and the harrow stood straight up on its side. Dad had to straighten that out and he was not very happy. Later that evening Dad said Bonnie was hitched to the fence post up at the barn and for me to ride her up to the lower pasture land in Virginia and turn her loose. That was a first for me. And the last, but I didn’t know it at the time.

Old Bonnie watched me suspiciously as I approached. She stood there with only a bridle on her head and a sack thrown over her back. When I climbed up on the rail fence, I was able to throw my leg across Bonnie’s back. I unhooked the bridle and we were on our way. Bonnie walked nicely around our narrow hill road. She had gone that way hundreds of times before. Then when we reached the little dirt road and turned right, Bonnie knew where she was going and I just had to hang on. The horse took off running as fast as she could. First I would be up in the air and then hanging off one side or the other. That old dirt road looked hard and it was going to hurt when I landed. But I hung on. My wild ride would have put the headless horseman to shame. Somehow I did manage to keep my head. When we reached the gate that opened into the field, Bonnie stopped. Her sides were heaving and I was pretty shook up. When I got ready to slide down off her back, Bonnie turned her head around and tried to bite me on the leg. I attempted to slip off the other side and it was the same. Here came the teeth. That went on for awhile and I believe she really enjoyed it. Finally I got off, left her standing there and came home. I cannot write here what my dad said. He was just worn out. He had to walk a mile up in Virginia to take care of Bonnie and walk back. I was in the bed by the time he came home. I thought that was the best place to be. Everything seemed better the next morning. Dad didn’t say anything about Old Bonnie and I didn’t either. I still think horses are beautiful animals, but I will keep my distance and admire them from afar.

Winter had passed and school was out for summer vacation. One day I was up at my friend Kay’s house to spend the afternoon. She wanted to go over to her great grandpa’s old farm where her dad was working about a half a mile away. When we arrived he was cutting small brush along the branch and piling it up to burn. We liked the idea of a bonfire, so we helped him drag brush. Later, while we were walking beside the creek, Kay found the most unusual rock. The color tone was odd. It was almost a brownish – purple, with flecks of gold shining in it. We looked at each other and silently said “GOLD.” Kay’s dad didn’t think it was, but said we could send it off to be tested to see what minerals the rock contained.

As we sat by the fire Kay’s dad told us a story about her great grandpa, who found a few rocks with the gold flecks in them. He searched the farm over but could find no more. So then great grandfather decided to dig some holes in the hill. He did not find gold and grew too old to keep digging. We got very excited and asked her dad if we could clean out one of those old mines. “Sure,” he said and he gave us some tools to work with including a rope.

We should have thought that this was the same dad that watched Kay and me jumping off a high porch when we were younger. We were flapping our arms, trying to learn to fly. He was on his way to the granary and stopped to watch us. Standing there with a bucket in his hand he said, “Just keep trying. I think you’re gonna get it.”

So Kay and I worked every chance we got cleaning out the old gold mine. We moved leaves, tree limbs, sticks and rocks that had gathered in the hole over time. And dug down far enough until we needed our rope tied to a tree to get out. It was hard work and we were getting in deeper. Then we made an exciting discovery. It was a large, long white bone with big teeth. So we went running to Kay’s dad and asked him if it was a dinosaur bone. If it was, that was as good as finding gold, maybe even better. We would be famous. He studied the bone for awhile. Then he said, “It is probably a jawbone from Kay’s great grandpa’s old horse. When the horse died, it was buried in one of those gold mines.” We were greatly disappointed. As if that wasn’t enough – that very day the mailman brought the results of the mineral test that was done on the rock with the gold flecks. AND IT WAS FOOL’S GOLD! Well, we didn’t have time to dig for more gold or to dig up a whole skeleton of a dinosaur anyway. School would begin soon and we would be very busy.

Kay and I forgot about finding our fortunes and getting rich. We graduated from high school, found jobs, got married and raised our children. Over time we came to realize we already had good fortune. We were rich in our family, our friends, our community and our church. What a blessing.

One summer my Great Aunt Charity Ann had a visitor. She was a distant relative who claimed she could see your future by reading the palms of your hands – Charge .25 cents. A fortune teller in our community! My friend Kay and I, at ten and eleven years old, did not know what to think of that. Most people wouldn’t go around her, but one day curiosity got the better of us. And there we sat in my great aunt’s living room with a few pennies in our pockets. Ms. Darcy was not at all what we had expected. There was no turban with stars and moon print on it wrapped around her head and no crystal ball. She looked like someone’s nice grandmother. She was old and walked with a cane. Her hair was very white. Black rimmed glasses framed her wise blue eyes. When Ms. Darcy smiled and spoke to us in her soft voice we liked her right away. “Hmmm,” she said, while studying the palms of our hands. “I can see that you are good girls. Now continue to obey your parents and help them. So that you may live long and prosper and you may find good fortune and be rich.” Ms. Darcy said some other stuff, but we didn’t remember what it was. Only that we would find good fortune and be rich. Telling our fortunes was free and we were so happy.

Then Ms. Darcy noticed the ugly seed wart on my right forefinger. She said that she would remove it for a penny. I gave her a penny. She held it to her lips and spoke some words. Then she rubbed the penny on my wart. As she slipped the coin into her pocket she said, “If you keep watch, the wart won’t leave.” For two weeks I checked the wart every morning and several more times during the day. When I forgot about the wart, it was gone. She was right about my wart, so surely Kay and I would find our good fortunes and be rich. But when, where, and how?

School started pretty soon and we were very busy all winter. Kay and I forgot all about finding our fortunes and being rich. To be continued…

It was a chilly spring morning in May. A brand new day full of possibilities. After breakfast, Dad told my Mom that he was going to our upper pasture land in Virginia. He needed to check on the sheep, especially two late lambs that were born in April. I got my little red sweater and I was ready to go, too. Dad didn’t actually say I could go, but he didn’t say that I could not. Why I wanted to go with him, I don’t know. Dad had long legs and he walked with a steady pace – uphill or down. I had to hurry as fast as my nine year old legs would carry me. Sometimes I sat down to rest and then had to run to catch up. We crossed the North Carolina / Virginia state line and kept going. Soon we were on the mountain. We walked around into the holler where the spring was and Dad set up the salt block he had brought for the sheep. When he called them, the flock came because they knew his voice. One of the small lambs was missing. We searched for it every where, but did not find it. Dad said a big bobcat probably got it to feed its young.

Before we started off the mountain, Dad said we would visit his Aunt Liddy. We went around the hill and passed the woods to a log cabin that set on the edge of a field. The spring house, cellar and barn were close by. Soft gray smoke rose from the rock chimney. We stepped up on the porch and Dad knocked on the door. It was opened by an older lady wearing a long black dress. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun and she looked so weary. Aunt Liddy asked us to come in and set with her for awhile. As they talked, I noticed a silver brooch on her collar with a black stone in the middle. It was a piece of mourning jewelry (worn when a loved one passed away). She asked if we would care for something to eat. My Dad said, “No, Maggie will have dinner ready when we get back home.” A metal pan of apples and a paring knife set on a straight back chair. She offered us some of those. That was considered good hospitality at a mountain home. The apples would have been kept all winter in the dirt cellar.

After awhile, Aunt Liddy asked Dad if he wanted to see Daisy. We followed her down a hallway where she opened the door to a large room. Near the window stood a bed with the highest head board I had ever seen. The bed itself set up high. Standing on my tip toes, I wasn’t tall enough to see, but it looked like someone was lying on top of the covers. A thin curtain was gathered and fastened to the top of the high headboard. Gently it came down over the figure on the bed. Dad lifted me up and held me high enough so I could see. I stared at the lovely young woman lying there. She was dressed in a pink gown. Her hair was brown, with a reddish tint. She looked like a sleeping fairy princess and I felt glad to have seen her. Nobody told me she was dead! I didn’t find that out until later. Her empty wheelchair sat at the foot of the bed. Dad mentioned the pink roses on the bedside table. Aunt Liddy said those were Daisy’s favorite and that a neighbor had made them out of crepe paper. Real roses were not in bloom that early in the spring.

Thirteen years earlier, when Daisy was a teenager, she had been horseback riding with some of her friends. Her horse got spooked, rared up and threw Daisy off. She landed in a sitting position on the hard packed dirt road. Slowly, over the years, she became paralyzed. Her mother and older half sister took care of her until she passed away. Aunt Liddy said people came up the mountain and brought food. They also helped with the farm and household chores. My Aunt Blanny helped to clean and dress Daisy after she died. Mountain people

called that “laying the body out.” Men in the community built a wooden coffin and dug the grave. Then they helped transfer her body over the ridge to the cemetery on the day of the burial.

Dad took me with him to the graveside service. A big crowd was there. After the preacher had finished his eulogy, the neighbors and friends gathered around to sing old hymns before the closing prayer. Their voices rose in unison and rang out over the mountains and valleys telling of the sweet by and by and that beautiful shore. Daisy’s father had died years earlier. The log cabin on the mountain would have only two women living there instead of three. It was a

beautiful place – a perfect old mountain homestead and pretty close to Heaven.

“In the sweet by and by, we shall meet on that beautiful shore.” -Sanford F. Bennett 1868

My dad’s blacksmith shop set at the lower end of our meadow beside the dirt road. It was a small wooden building that held his tools and big equipment. During the winter months and the rainy days of summer Dad had lots of smithy work to do. Neighboring farmers brought their horses to be shod, harnesses to be mended, and tools to be repaired. They hitched their horses to fence posts and sat in the shop or on the porch to talk while Dad worked. Some jobs took longer than others to finish.

I was not allowed inside the shop when Dad was heating the forge and working with hot iron. Sometimes I stood outside and watched him through the glass window pane. When he pumped the big bellows to make the fire burn hotter, flames shot up high and sparks flew everywhere. To me, at nine years old, it looked like a fire breathing dragon. I thought Dad was very brave. He took a piece of iron, holding it with a big pair of tongs and put it in the fire coals until it turned red. Next, it was dipped into a bucket of water to cool. Then on to the anvil, where Dad beat the iron with a big hammer until it was just the right shape. All of that looked dangerous to me, so I quit watching.

My dad could fix almost anything. He bought a cane press, repaired it and mounted it on a small wooden platform with sled runners. When our neighbors cane patch was ready to harvest, they stripped the leaves off and cut the stalks. The cane tops were saved for seed or to feed the chickens. On molassy making day they brought a horse and hooked it to the little sled and took the press home with them. It was a very busy time for adults. Someone was feeding cane stalks into the press to extract the juice. The horse, tethered to the mill with a long pole, walked around and around in circles making the wheels turn. Other folks were setting the long vat over the fire pit getting ready to boil the molasses. Quart and half gallon mason jars were clean and waiting for the hot molasses to be poured in and sealed up. That was hard work. It took all day.

We kids did small chores, played games and climbed up on the discarded pile of cane stalks and slid off. We were waiting for the molasses to finish boiling and come off the fire so we could sop the empty boiler. Small wooden paddles were whittled for us from thin pieces of wood, no splinters. We put them to good use and loved it when we got a taste of the foam on our paddles. Our neighbors brought the cane press back and also gave Dad a half gallon of molasses for the use of the mill. I have sweet memories of going to the molasses makings at our neighbors house.

Dad’s blacksmith shop is long gone and only stands by the roadside in my memories. The blacksmith equipment from the shop is on display at the Mountain Farm Life Museum at Ashe Park in Jefferson, NC.

The old wood cook stove looked huge compared to the other furnishings in our little kitchen. Just inside the back door, and to the right, set a small wooden table. A metal bucket of fresh water and a dipper for drinking set on top. There was also a metal wash pan and some soap for hand washing. A towel and a mirror hung on the wall. If you opened the back door to throw out your wash water, you needed to look before you threw it. Most people came in the back door and someone might have been coming up the walkway. (This happened one cold winter morning.) Next was a window; our flour and mill chest set underneath. The old wooden butter churn and a straight back chair set in the corner. Dad built a step cabinet (a kind of hutch) on the next wall. It was painted deep yellow and matched the yellow design in the wallpaper. The top of the cupboard had four open shelves and they were filled with necessary items for making good food – sugar, shortening, salt, baking powder, soda, spices, vanilla and walnut flavorings and cocoa. There was a large flat work area and below were cabinets with doors for storage. I can still see Mom standing there at the old kitchen cabinet where she prepared our meals every day. And finally, there was our big wood burning cook stove. It was not fancy, but it served us well as long as we kept a good supply of stove wood ready. The old kitchen wood stove’s main jobs were to cook food, heat the house and heat water for bathing and washing clothes. After every wash day the old flat irons were heated to do the ironing.

One day, my brother Clarence was getting ready to going courting. His white shirt had been washed, starched and dampened down. I was about 12 years old and he said if I would iron it for him he would give me a quarter. I didn’t clean the bottom of iron, like I was supposed to, and stove black came off on the front of his white shirt. We tried to get it out as good as we could, but I didn’t get paid.

When I was very young I watched my older sisters – Orba, Carrie and Pearl getting ready to go to a box supper. They covered the boxes with pretty colored paper and decorated them with ribbons and flowers. Then they made fried chicken, biscuits and apple pie to fill their boxes. The box supper social and fundraiser was to be held at the Old Helton School House. There would be music and cake walks. Pretty young girls hoped that their favorite fellows would pay the highest price for their box and eat with them. After the boxes were fixed, their hair had to be perfect before they got dressed. My sisters had a pink handled hair curling iron. The straight metal rod was heated in the fire box of the wood cook stove, cooled a few minutes and then they curled their hair with it. A metal clamp held the curl in place. Sometimes I could smell hair scorching, but it usually turned out looking good.

I have talked of the more serious jobs the old wood cook stove had to do. It also made it possible for my sister Pearl and her friends to have taffy pulls. The taffy candy was made from molasses. After boiling, it became very thick and sticky. They had lots of fun pulling the taffy as it cooled. Then it was cut into small pieces. It was so good. They also popped popcorn in a kettle on the wood stove and made popcorn balls, using molasses to hold them together. Those were good times. Our kitchen was a hub of activity, centered around the old wood cook stove. Three meals a day were cooked or heated on it, winter and summer. It was a big part of our everyday lives.

As a little girl, I loved to go with my Mom to our old cellar. It had been dug back into the hill years ago. The front was made of flat field stones stacked up on each other and there was a wooden door. With no windows, it was very dark inside. But when Mom opened it up and let the sunlight in, it shined upon our storehouse of food. Wooden shelves lined the dirt walls. They were full of quart and half gallon mason jars containing fruits, vegetables and meats. Most of the cans were blue in color. They had zinc lids with white glass inside and red rubber seals. Wooden bins set on the dirt floor. They held apples, beets, carrots, potatoes and turnips. Pumpkins and squash were there, too. Mom handed me a quart of apple butter and a quart of sausage. She picked up two of the same. We stepped out of the cellar and closed the door. Company was coming for the weekend and this food was part of the fixins. On our way to the house I carried my jars carefully. I had seen the hard work my family done preparing and canning this food.

For the apple butter, dishpans full of apples were peeled, cored and sliced. Out in the back yard the big brass kettle set in its iron rack. A fire was built underneath. The apples, a little bit of water, and later on the sugar were added to the pot. Stirring the apples and keeping the right amount of fire under the kettle kept us busy. Cinnamon was added when the apple butter was almost done. It took hours to finish. Then it was put into canning jars and sealed while hot. Apple butter day was fun, but I did not like hog killing day. I went to my room and played and took a nap, only coming out for supper. Often I had carried apples to those hogs and they were so happy.

The next day my family was very busy carrying water from the spring to heat on the wood cook stove, washing jars, cutting and canning tenderloin and grinding sausage. Good lean pieces of meat and some fat were ground up. Then it was seasoned with salt, black or red pepper and sage. Little sausage balls were made and fried. Those were packed into jars and canned in a hot water bath canner on the wood cook stove. Later some of the sausage was used for the most delicious sausage dumplins when company was coming, my favorite.

Mom was making her special cookie dough sweetened with molasses. I had my little apron on and my dough roller in hand. I wanted to help, too. She rolled out the dough and cut out six large cookies the size of a small plate. Mom let me make some small cookies from the left over dough. After the cookie rounds were baked and cooled, she stacked them on a pretty glass cake plate with a thick layer of apple butter between each cookie. The stack cake was tall. Mom wrapped it in her favorite kitchen towel made from an old flour sack and put it in the cupboard to rest.

On Sunday when every one was seated around the dinner table we were truly thankful for the bounty before us and for another blessed day.

The last surviving apple tree on our farm stood sentinel for over eighty years. It grew at the upper side of the garden, in front of the old cellar, near the woodshed and pretty close to our house. Originally we had apple, cherry, peach and pear trees on our property. Apples were a

favorite because of the variety and the many ways they could be prepared. Springtime brought early transparent apples. They were good to eat raw or cooked and made into applesauce. We enjoyed the Early June and Strawberry apples. Those were the best. In late

summer we had Cotton Sweets and Virginia Beauties. Our fall apples were Fallawater and Johnson Winter. We always had plenty of apples to eat, can, make dried apples and apple butter. Sometimes we made apple cider. The apples on the Sentinel were the last to get ripe.

Every fall, about frost time, she dropped her perfect red apples into the dried grass below. They were like treasures waiting to be found. If they froze, we just put them in cold water for a bit and they were fine. We didn’t know what kind of apple tree the Sentinel was, Dad had grafted it when the tree was young.

The first time I noticed the little apple tree I was eight years old. It was twice as tall as me and beginning to spread out. Every year it grew bigger. When it got big enough to bloom, bees and butterflies came to it’s beautiful pink flowers. A set of robins built their nest in the limbs of

the Sentinel. My niece, Patsy, and I loved to play under the apple tree. Dad fixed a swing to one of its limbs for us. Swinging there was great fun. Sometimes Patsy and I carried a few of the apples up to the hog pen to feed the pigs. That made them very happy.

Over the years I took the Sentinel for granted, passing by it every day. It had lost some of its limbs and I had to have surgery on my right hand and arm. We grew old together. The Sentinel did not fail to produce fruit, even in old age. Then black bears became plentiful in our area. They often came to the apple tree and that was just too close to the house. So, we made the painful decision to have the Sentinel cut down. It was a cold and windy day when the neighbors came to cut it. They notched the tree and then cut through its body. The Sentinel set back down on its stump and stood there in the wind. They had to coax the tree to fall. Watching from the window, I had tears in my eyes as it was cut up and hauled away. The stump is still there up near the woodshed. Every time I look at it, I wish just for a moment the Sentinel was still there.

But, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; – Ecclesiastes 3 Verses 1 & 2 KJV Holy Bible