“A cold wet May means a barn full of hay.” How many times I heard a farmer make that prediction, many years ago. With only a few full-time farmers left nearby, I suspect the cold wet May doesn’t excite the backyard gardeners of today.

The weather has promoted a need to find “indoor” things to do. I retreated for an afternoon to the old diaries of my Sherman ancestors. In the late 1800s, they were still cultivating tobacco as a main crop on their farms. It was necessary to have extra pairs of hands to help with planting and cultivating the somewhat fragile plants.

Old citizens will remember driving up the valley roads, where fields of growing tobacco were enclosed in miles of thin cloth coverings strung on thin wooden frames. This protection was to avoid having the crop damaged by a hailstorm. It was extremely important to protect the big, broad leaves of the tobacco plant. In this area, the crop brought high prices and the big leaves were used as “wrappers” for cigars.

Each grower had to have some kind of a barn, slatted to allow air to help dry the leaves before they went to market.

Some of the farms were also “putting up” a supply of wood for the fires that burned wood year around. It was not uncommon for a farmhouse to have an outdoor kitchen – sometimes on a back porch or even in a small building right off the kitchen. Here, the job of canning and preserving the food for the long winters was going on all during the growing season.

With the nearest store 10 to 12 miles away, each household had its own “store” in the cool cellar or a “root cellar” where winter squash, potatoes, apples, carrots and other crops were put down for winter use. I was exposed to a lot of the summer canning process. It began with the applesauce made from the early crop from the backyard tree, and continued all summer long. My grandmother canned early peas and bushels of string beans and corn and she made pickles and relishes and all kinds of sauces from any and every fruit and vegetable that was appropriate. Many times I had the job of turning the very efficient hand-grinder that was fastened to a board on the kitchen table. Sometimes we used the grinder on the picnic table in the backyard.

By the time we were busy using every tomato the garden yielded, we were scouting up jars and containers for the late crops. Especially fragrant was the homemade chili sauce that simmered for a couple of days on the wood stove. It had spices and other garden produce like peppers and onions, and every last tomato we could find. Ladled into a fat canning jar, it was a part of many dishes and various meals all winter.

Best of all was the thick, rich mincemeat made from the green tomatoes destined to never ripen. The addition of raisins and brown sugar and brandy was topped off with a pound or more of real butter. It was used in place of ground suet. We never made more than a dozen quarts, but that was enough to share with my friend Shirley Hurd and my mother’s friend Gert Jenks. It was to be more appreciated than going to a store and buying a jar that never was as good as homemade.

The words at the end of last week’s column were spoken by Will Rogers.

Who said “Americans are like a rich father who wishes he knew how to give his sons the hardships that made him rich.”?