It’s the truth that for all the work they do, police are poorly paid. This was definitely true in the 70s when my father worked for the Oregon State Police. During this time, we were on food stamps (when they were actually green stamps that had to be licked and put into little booklets to use at the store), visited discount supermarkets (Prairie Market was the main one in Astoria – you had to pick up a grease crayon at the front of the store and mark the prices onto the cans and boxes yourself.)

But we also did a lot at home to make ends meet. My mother made many of my clothes, my father did all the maintenance work on the vehicles and the house and homestead. But most importantly, we always made our own food. Much of it was grown by ourselves – or grew wild. Other times, we bought in bulk and put it away for the winter.

Despite the hard work this all entails, I still refer to this time as the best time of my growing up. I had my mother at home with us and I learned a lot from her. I watched until I could do… and then helped until I left home.

Growing Our Own

We had a very large garden, and it was always filled with peas and beans, potatoes, corn and squash… whatever we liked to grow and eat. I learned that it was always worth trying even if the results weren’t perfect. And in some years, they did very well indeed! (My mother was pictured in a local paper one year, dwarfed by the corn and beans growing all around her!)

Fruit Trees

We had a number of fruit trees on our property. All were quite old already when we moved there. We had two pear trees, four apple trees (Gravenstein and Northern Spy) and four (I think) prune trees. (This is a free-stone Italian plum – in the US, it would usually be the Stanley Prune. In the UK, they are Presidential Plums, I seem to remember – similarish to Victoria Plums, but darker skin and yellow freestone flesh.)

(Image of Italian Prunes: PxFuel.)

One year, a big storm knocked over one of our smaller apple trees. My dad used my grandfather’s old red tractor to pull it upright again.

Another year, my dad decided to prune the big apple tree that used to have my swing in it… but he found rot… lots of rot… By the time he got to the end of the rot, there was no more tree. That was a sad day.

Canning

My mother canned or froze the excess produce.

In particular, we made a lot of jam! (My next younger brother still prefers peanut butter and jam sandwiches for lunch!)

In the earliest years, I remember my mother using paraffin wax for sealing jam. As the jam would cook, it would splatter from the hot sugar and added pectin. Then, it would be ladled into half-pint jars and the melted paraffin would be poured on top – about ¼ inch deep or so.

I liked playing with the paraffin because it made funny shapes as it cooled. Totally worth the moments of it being too hot on the fingers!

In later years, it was always in the waterbath canner.

We also canned the prunes which was one of my favorite things in the winter (well, after we ate up the last of the jars of cherries anyway.) They were canned in a sugar syrup.

Sometimes, we’d drive up into the warmer valleys of Oregon to pick berries – or buy whole flats of fruit ready to be canned or made into jam. As a kid, I would eat almost as many as I’d pick! They would smell nice and sweet the whole way home again (usually an hour or more in the car) – and I would pick out the juiciest and sweetest to eat as we drove. (Don’t think I needed any supper that night!)

Over the next few days, the fruit was made into jam (strawberries) or canned whole (cherries) or in slices (peaches) for winter eating. Sometimes, it was simply frozen. I think that was mainly the apples and pears. My mother loved putting pear chunks in green (lime) jello with a creamy jello topping… I think that was one of those popular 70s things.

There is something very satisfying about making your own food. There are few (or zero) food miles, often with no pesticides or anything else added to the food - no residues to worry about and almost zero cost when it was homegrown or foraged (more about that next time.) The only cost was the sugar, pectin and canning lids.

Past issues...

Preschool to Second Grade - Svensen, Oregon (1976-1981)

Svensen Trailer Court , The Best Place for a Child to Grow , The Forming of a Farmer , The Great-Horned Owl

Lori Svensen
author/designer at A'mara Books
photographer/graphic artist for Viking Visual
(Buy my work at RedBubble, TeePublic, PicFair and DeviantArt.)
verified author on Goodreads
(Buy my books at Books2Read and at LBRY)
find me on Twitter

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