Reminiscing about the "good ole days"

After reading a couple of blogs, I began to reminisce about the days of old.
I know I'm fairly young, but as I said in an earlier comment, I grew up with "backward" grandparents. My dad's side of the family has always done things a bit "different". While growing up we didn't quite understand their "way of life", but looking back now, it's a bit clearer.
Now we weren't into farming like Papa Rooster's family was, but we had it all. You name it we had it: Cows, chickens, pigs...we even had a garden that was full of purple hull peas, okra, squash, butter beans, corn, watermelons, cane. (My granddaddy still makes his very own home-made cane syrup).

I remember every year they'd have a pig slaughtered and make their own sausage. Sometimes we even got to turn the crank handle of the old sausage grinder. Most of the time we fought over whose turn it was, but we finally each got a turn at cranking the grinder.
Each year we'd all help shell peas or shuck/cream corn. We'd always sit around in a big circle and listen to the elders tell stories of when they were younger. And when creaming corn, we didn't have the fancy "creamers" you see today. No, we had an old tin mayonnaise jar lids that Pa had punched holes in, that were bent so they were easier to hold.
All of the kids usually had more creamed corn on themselves than in the bowl in their laps...

In the winter time it was always so COLD. Well, cold for the south :) . We lived with my grandparents for a while, especially while my dad worked nights.
When they'd put us to bed, they'd light the old small gas wall heater in the room. Three of us slept together; me, my little brother, and a little sister. There were so many hand-made quilts on us that we could hardly move... If anyone had to get up to use the restroom at night, we had to call for help to get out of bed.
Every day held the same routine. In the summer, the alarm went off at 5:30am and Nanny and Pa got up. Pa off to feed the assortment of animals, and Nanny off to the kitchen where she prepared breakfast. Always the same thing; grits, eggs, egg gravy, sausage of some sort, and biscuits. If there were no biscuits, we had hoe cakes. I loved breakfast time. Pa was usually either leaving or already gone by the time we woke up.
Shortly after breakfast, Nanny was starting lunch. (Yes, she cooked three meals a day. And they didn't come from a box!) Something was always in the pressure cooker. We loved to sneak in and jump on the floor to make it whistle louder. Of course it always resulted in someone being chased out of the house.
Clothes were hung on the line to dry. I don't remember her having a dryer until I became a teenager. The house was basically unoccupied all day.
We were always outside. Usually getting into something... Most of the time in the plum, apple, pear, and fig trees or scuppernong vines. Nanny was constantly after us about staying out of her fruit trees. We could have all the fruit that had fallen on the ground and was beginning to rot, but we weren't to pick the fruit from the trees...sounds similar to another story I've heard.

The girls were always "cooking" outside, making mud pies, dirt cakes, mixing some sort of creation in the big cast iron kettles. Sometimes we'd even tempt the boys to taste our special recipes.

I'm all grown up now, but some days I wish I were back in Nanny's yard, running around barefoot, without a care in the world.

Nanny and Pa have modernized a bit since we were kids, but the feeling of the "backward" way is still there. Even though every thing has change, every thing's the same.

It's an amazing feeling to look back at where you've been, and see where you are now. I can't wait to tell my children and grandchildren about "the days of old".