Went out to pick up my Free Press this morning and was wondering what the Messenger was going to do this weekend as they usually publish their Friday/Saturday paper on Friday, however, this year they, like many other businesses are off for the long weekend.
When I took my Free Press out, there was the Messenger also, with Happy 4th, 5th & 6th of July on the front page.
Will bore you with just a bit more nostalgia of the Old Days. It seems like kind of a quiet 4th of July around here, although a number of businesses are closed. I believe Westford is having a little celebration on the Green over there for a couple hours, but the 4th of July Barbecues seem to me to be few & far between. Back when I was a kid on the farm, we never barbecued. Actually the only thing I knew about a barbecue was cooking hot dogs on a stick over a wood fire, and that we usually did at the one room school I attended on the last day of school for our once a year school picnic. The one thing I do remember was our old 8 quart ice cream freezer, which looked very much like the one below, except for the fact that it was green instead of brown. I had to hunt for a while to find a picture of this old type ice cream freezer, but they do still sell them, only in the 4 quart version. That would certainly not have gone very far at our get togethers:
(http://www.vtgrandpa.com/newsclips/ice_cream_freezer.jpg)
After we got electricity and no longer had the ice house, we would pick up a block of ice down in St. Albans on a cross street in back of where Paquin's used to be on Federal Street and pack it in sawdust that Dad used for cow bedding until we were ready to use it.
Before mother put the ice cream ingredients together, there were definitely some other things needed. Our one Jersey cow's milk, which we used for the house, because there was a lot of cream in it that came to the top, was topped off to use in the ice cream. We had our own eggs and mother would, depending on the season, make different flavors. If all else failed and we didn't have certain ingredients, she would make vanilla. Other times it was pineapple, but we usually got along with what we had. There was no such thing as jumping in the car and running down to the store at Fairfield Center for one missing ingredient, you just changed your mind on what you were going to make.
While mother was doing this, Dad would get out a burlap bag and his double-bitted ax, split the block of ice in several pieces and place it in the burlap bag. He would then hit the bag with the flat side of the ax to crush up the ice, until the whole block was crushed. By this time mother would have the ice cream mixture in the freezer container and dad would start packing the crushed ice, using plenty of the cow salt as he filled the freezer. Dad always told me it was very important to use plenty of salt, as the ice cream would not start freezing until the melted ice water came out of the little hole in the ice cream maker near the top of the wooden part. Don't remember how long it took before the ice cream started to get hard, but it seemed like forever. When the crank started turning really hard, I can remember standing on the top of the freezer and hanging on to an overhead beam in the woodshed as dad made sure the ice cream was frozen to a point where it would be just right.
After this was done, ice would be packed up over the top until we were ready to eat it, which wasn't usually too long a time. The ice cream was always better shortly after it was made as it had a creamy texture like the creemee you buy today. If you let it sit for a while, it kind of crystalized, but none of that ice cream sat around too long to crystalize at our place. That old ice cream freezer was used on just about every birthday and anniversary that came along. I don't think my sister still has it, because, I think over the years, the wood just dried out and it fell apart.
Now, this may not seem like a lot of fun to the youngsters of today, but we lived back in the hills a bit and enjoyed each other as a family along with the uncles and aunts and cousins that used to come visiting - Perhaps one of the reasons I like to eat so much is that there are many happy remembrances of these happy get togethers in the old days with friends and family.