02-12-01

This week I will continue with Part 3 of the story about Merrylands Farm written by Billie McCauley. Merrylands Farm was just northwest of Aubrey on the old road to Blackjack in the 1920's and 1930's.

Just the week prior to the photograph a large jackrabbit discovered the strawberry patch and was happily having brunch when Bub and old Spot rounded the corner of the house and Spt spied the intruder. Spot went ballistic and took off after the jackrabbit, who was about his size. The rabbit took off slowly, not worried about this small dog which he could outrun. He loped along, then looked back to see where Spot was. Spot was definitely gaining, so the big Jack gave a bound right into the fence, which addled him and he bounced back on top of Spot, who was prepared to defend mothers’ strawberries to the death. And Spot killed the jackrabbit dead.

So I didn’t think I would last long.

My brother was older and wiser. He asked to pose with his pets to show how they all got along. The dot is old snake bit Spot, much recovered.

The dog and cat were friends and old Tom, the cat, was mother to a batch of baby chicks. The cat used to go away and come back with kittens, which it would stash in the barn to be close to plenty of cow milk, which the kittens got.

Several litters of kittens had been reared and adopted, when one day old Tom was rearranging kittens and Uncle Jim Harmon stopped in the barn and asked what that tom cat was doing baby sitting kittens.

Daddy laughed and said even though we kids called it old Tom, obviously the cat wasn’t a tom, as it had kittens.

Uncle Jim picked up the cat, upended it and commented that it sure had a big pair of balls for a lady cat.

Daddy was sure he had a hermorphodite cat till the vet examined the cat and pronounced it all male. He figured the cat was picking up stray kittens that people abandoned by the roadside, as, unfortunately, some people still do.

It was a very nurturing cat and when an old broody hen died just after hatching her eggs, old Tom took over. The chicks were very happy and followed Tom everywhere. That’s one in the picture.

Everyone was bemused to see the baby chicks closely scurrying after Tom and crawling all over this big Tom cat then he lay down. But he raised his chickens with aplomb.

By the time the paper did their writeup, daddy had the farm producing decently even in the dry years and mother had won many awards for canning at the local, state, and national and international canning competitions.

She traveled around the state and gave canning demonstrations for the Ball Jar Company. Mother could, would and did can almost anything edible. But the thing she had the biggest request for was the thing she hated most to do.

Mr. Lincoln, regional director for the Ball Jar Company asked her once about the Rattlesnake Roundup that he had read about in the paper. He was well aware of mothers’ artistic preserving of meat in glass jars and suggested that if she could put some rattlesnake meat up, it would be an attention getter at their displays, and he would personally like to have some for gifts. In fact, he would order a case and send her to the roundup if she would go.

I happened to be present at this meeting. Mr. Lincoln had taken us to lunch at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas where I had again been threatened with dire consequences if I wasn’t quiet.

Actually I was struck dumb. My mother touched a snake? What next, can some mice maybe? Mother shuddered and squealed at the sight of them, also.

I knew how mother felt about snakes and waited for the explosion. She looked a bit pale, but it didn’t happen and things got curiouser and curiouser.

We went to the Roundup where mother gave everybody their instructions. The Roundup people were very nice. Mother set up her canning equipment and we had a large table to work on.

They brought in large dead rattlers already beheaded, skinned them carefully and laid them out on the table.

Mother was wearing large rubber gloves and standing well back. She directed them how to cut up the snakes, telling them their knives were so much sharper than hers.

Then she laid out pint jars an directed me to put the chunks of mead in the same rotation she used for peaches. Next she quickly screwed the lids on, picked up the jars with the tongs usually for handling hot jars and placed them in the pressure cooker.

And they were wildly successful. Won prizes everywhere, were bought as curiosities and the orders kept coming. My brother and Dad could probably have won a rattlesnake skinning contest had there been such a thing. Mother canned lots of rattlesnake and never touched a one.

So if there is a dearth of rattlesnakes out at Merrylands, now you know why. Mother canned them.

[ Home ]