Ode to an Ernie Bob, or......It's a Pig's Life..........

I come from a long line of pig farmers.  We always had pigs when I was little and Dad worked for a farm that farrowed sows and raised pigs on dirt.  When they converted over to confinement Dad's lungs couldn't handle it so he found a job as a diesel mechanic.  The house we lived in was the hired man house at the hog farm so we had to move, but that's neither here nor there.  On to the purpose of this post!

You may be asking yourself, what in the heck is an Ernie Bob?  Well he was a pig of course!

This is Ernie Bob and he was my first baby.  When I was about 16 or 17, a family member called and said one of their sows had only one piglet.  The pig business bein' what it was, he didn't want to leave just one pig on his sow, so he called and asked me if I wanted a pig to bottle feed.  Well.......DUH!  Of course I did, so I went and got this little boar piglet.  Nobody ever told me it was hard to raise a bottle pig, or that you couldn't do it on plain old cow's milk, so I guess that's why I didn't have any trouble.  That little pig was my baby and I loved him!  He lived on our enclosed back porch and he'd squeal in the night to wake me up for his bottle. 

 My dad named him Ernie Bob (don't ask me why, you'd just have to know my dad) and he was a trip.  Dad wanted to cut him and pull his tushes because he was worried about him gettin' mean but I wouldn't let him.  I just knew that would make my Ernie Bob not love me anymore, so he stayed a boar with all his teeth.  I couldn't get him weaned from the bottle because he knew I'd just melt when he asked for it, so one weekend when I had gone to a friend's house my dad weaned him off the bottle.  He lived on the porch till he got too big and then we built him a pen out in the old chicken house.

At this time, I also had a pet chicken named Bernadette (after Bernadette Peters)

and I'd walk around the yard with Ernie Bob right behind me and Bernadette right behind him.  We got more than a few stares from the neighbors! 

He never got mean and as an adult boar would suck on my bare toes!  The only thing you couldn't do to him was push on his head.  Hogs fight with their heads and when he was a little bitty pig and living on the back porch, when Dad would come home from work, he'd take his boot and push on the side of Ernie Bob's head.  Ernie Bob'd go crazy, bucking and fighting Dad's boot while Dad cackled like a loon.  Well once he got big, he'd never offer to get rough with you.......unless you pushed on his head.  Uncle Big Dog was over one day and standing at the panel lookin' at him and scratchin' him.  Dad said.... Now don't push on his head, so of course baby brother Big Dog had to do it.  Ernie Bob climbed right up that panel and up the front of Uncle Big Dog.  There was nothing left of his t-shirt.  Ernie Bob ripped it off him! 

After he got about 8 months old or so, my dad arranged for a local hog farmer to buy him to use as a boar.  I was very sad to see my Ernie Bob go, but he lived a long life breeding sows for Johnny!

Before Ernie Bob there were lots of feed lot pigs.  Dad and Grandpa kept sows on dirt.  That's me in the blue flowered dress and my sister in the green t-shirt.  You gotta love that there was an old dead push mower as well as numerous other trash in the hog lot.....

And here I am makin' friends while my sister is doin' something and my cousin T is figgerin' out what that long thing attached to the rear of the pig is!  I was right at 2 1/2 or 3 in these pictures.

Since then The Man and I've raised feeder pigs several times, but they were always MEAN and I never got too attached..........

You may be askin' yourself why all of a sudden I'm waxin' poetic about pigs?? 

Well here's a hint........

What does a Goodwife like me want for her birthday??  PIGS of course!  Sorry OFG, I know you're disappointed in me.........

Tune in tomorrow for the whole scoop on the pig situation at Goodwife Farm........

God Bless.............

More Memories of a Goodwife.......



Wood heat and the smell of wood smoke brings back powerful memories for me.  They are wonderful, happy memories of my childhood and I treasure them. 

As some of you may know, my dad and I have a pretty volatile relationship.  We are both strong, passionate, intense people and that is like fire and gasoline.  I get to be fire cuz it smells better!  ;)

Anywho, for every volatile memory I have of my dad, I have two dozen wonderful ones.

Dad and I, just hangin' out. 1977

When I was a kid we only had a woodstove for heat.  We lived in an old double wide trailer and the stove was out on the porch.  There was a hole cut in the wall with a 2 foot pipe coming in and that is where the heat came out.  We'd get up in the morning and stand in front of the pipe to get dressed.  The door to the back porch was across the hall from my bedroom door and in the night I'd wake up to the distinctive "schhhrrrkk" of my dad tearing newspaper into strips cuz the stove had gone out.  I'd get up and go sit on the step with him while he got the stove going.  We'd talk about everything under the sun during those midnight hours and I treasure those times.  Dad never got tired of my questions, although he did and still does like to tease me about my never ceasing mouth.  He patiently answered everything my questing mind wanted to know.  I can't tell you how much he taught me.

I've also got some fond memories of cutting wood with Dad.  We always had good intentions of cutting during the early fall, but that just never seemed to happen.  He likes to tease The Paintiff and I now about our wood cutting adventures.  He says....."Well ya oughta be like me and wait until you are bustin' up the furniture before you go cut wood!"  That's not much of an exaggeration.  I've cut wood in some seriously nasty weather, me and Dad.  He'd build a fire so I could warm up between work and I remember he and I both sticking our boots right on the burning logs and watching our feet smoke. 

Wrestling baby!  We used to watch wrestling every Sunday on channel 11 and then we'd go have tag team wrestling on Mom and Dad's bed with Mom screetching in the background that we were going to break something.  Good times!!

Before he got hurt so badly, Dad was a diesel mechanic and diesel fuel reminds me instantly of my Daddy.  I love the smell of it.  He always wears Carhartt coats, the chore coat with the blanket lining and he'd wear them until they were rags.  They were inundated with his smell and when they were ragged and hanging off him, and he'd break down to buy a new one, I always cabbaged on to the old one. 

I was always under his feet, and if he was out the door, I was right behind him.  I'm closer to my dad than my sister is, and it's because of that.  He never favored one of us over the other, I was just always right there, wanting to be wherever he was and she wasn't like that.  My dad was and really still is my hero, even though he makes me 6 kinds of crazy a lot of the time.

My handsome Daddy and me on my wedding day, March 30, 1996

So many good memories of Daddy.  I'm thankful to have him and thankful that of all the people on earth, I'm most like him.  I've learned to be a better person through his faults and learned what honesty, integrity, morals, and values are because of him.  He taught me what is really important in life and that your word is your bond.  He taught me to be a good person and to do right by folks.  He also taught me my impressive cursing library, but I'm working on that!  ;0)


God Bless............

Florida Memories........2010!

My old camera died a while back so when we got ready to go to Florida last month, I decided I had to have a new one.  These pictures are from our vacation to Navarre Beach. 

If you didn't enter my contest, please feel free to do so.  I'll be picking and posting the winner tomorrow. 

A rainbow that was just lovely.  That is the Navarre Beach pier.



I loved watching the surfers!



This little guy was in the bottom of our pool!  The Youngun spotted him from our 5th floor balcony so we went down and fished him out so we could carry him down to the beach and let him go.

This guy just cracked us up! 

The Man and The Youngun walking a short pier at Navarre Park.  Looking across at those condos, ours is the third one from the left.  The body of water is the Santa Rosa Sound and we had lots of fun swimming there one day!  You drive across the sound and then you are on Navarre Beach, and you have the Sound to the north of you and the Gulf to the south of you.  Very very beautiful!

A monarch butterfly at the Butterfly House in Navarre Park

Giant Swallowtail butterfly at the Butterfly House.

This was after a day of clouds and rain.  The sun popped through and I just loved how it looked hitting the water.  I wish I was a more talented photographer and could've really captured it!

Well I've got lots more pics, but I'm sure you've seen enough for one blog posting!  Check back in tomorrow for the contest winner!

God Bless.........

Memories of Grampa and Gran'ma.....

My grandpa was a salty old soul.  Only went through the 6th grade as so many boys of his generation did, he was in the Army and fought in Korea before marrying my grandma.  He was a paratrooper and got shot in the lower back.  Grandpa has a purple heart among other medals, but I don't know what.  I've never seen them and he never talked about it to anybody except for me.  About the only thing he ever said was he asked me if I'd ever eaten sushi.  He said It wadn't bad except for the eyeballs.............  He told me stories about being a young boy and rollin' up corn husks and smoking them and he taught me lots about fishin' and gardenin'.  He was a truck driver for most of my dad's childhood and then he worked at Mobil Chemical until he got sick and couldn't work anymore. 

Grandpa and Grandma with their Christmas present of pictures of me and my sister.  I'm on the left in the Ernie shirt...

I don't ever remember my grandpa not sick.  He got sick the year after I was born, so I don't remember him any other way.  He had diabetes, congestive heart failure, gout, and a slew of other troubles.  He taught me a lot about how to be.  No matter how sick he was, you could go in the bedroom and say How ya feelin' Grampa?  and he'd always say Purty good, or Oh I'm tollable...... On his good days he'd go out to the garage and sit in a padded rocking chair and tinker.  He made bird houses, and picnic tables and all kind of stuff from that chair.  On his bad days he'd have a TV tray set up next to the bed with a dismantled VCR on it.  He'd roll over, reach out and tinker for a few minutes, then roll back over to rest.  He never complained, EVER that I'd heard of.  Oh he'd get grouchy with others but he never complained.  When I was a real little girl I used to love going to visit him in the hospital.  He was always on the cardic floor and the nurses would take us in the little room and show us our Grandpa's print out.  She'd tear a big long sheet of it off and let us take it home.......See, that's your grandpa's heart beats!  He always, always saved part of his supper for us, and I grew to love hospital mashed taters and gravy.  I'll never forget once when I was older, probably about 15 or 16, he was in the hospital and I was up there with Gran'ma.  He'd just put a big ole wad of skoal in and the doctor came in.  Grandpa got all wild eyed and frantically started brushing the sheet off where he'd spilled skoal.  The doctor came sauntering over, looked at Grandpa appraisingly, and said....Open your mouth Charlie.......Grandpa shook his head no.....Charlie, open your mouth......again, a kind of a grunt and frantic head shaking No!  Charlie, OPEN your mouth.....Grandpa took a big ole gulp and when he opened his mouth there wasn't nary a bit of skoal in sight!  It's so funny cuz there was little bits of chew all over the bed, and he'd been spittin' in the trash can.  It wasn't like he was foolin' anybody! 

Me with a catfish...I was 3 years old.  That is Dad and Sister 3 in the background...

He and my grandma used to take me and my sister camping in the old slide in pickup truck camper.  I was just amazed by the gas lamps that were on the wall!  My gramps was an amazing fisherman.  He's have 6 poles lined up on the bottom, fishin' for catfish.  He'd hook a fish and then holler Come'ere Skunk! and real this 'un in for me!  I never lost a fish that Grandpa hooked for me no matter how long it took my little 5 year old self to get it hauled into the bank!  We used to fish at a place called Lake Greenwood.  Fishing there with my daddy and Grandpa are some of my earliest and clearest memories.  There was a big sandy washout and we'd walk down that and sit on the spit of sand at the bottom to fish.  Grandpa always fished out of an old metal folding chair, and the legs of that chair would sink down so far that he was almost sitting on the ground.  I remember once trying to set the hook in a fish like Grandpa did..........my line came flying outta that water so fast!  It smacked into the bank behind us.  Grandpa just chuckled and shook his head.  Oh how I loved that man. 

Spending the night at Grandma and Grandpa's I'd get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and Grandpa'd be standing in the kitchen with a spatula in hand.  Want an fried egg samwitch? he'd say.  Grandpa....it's 1 in the mornin!  Why would I want a fried egg samwitch?  He's the first person I remember making me an ice cream cone at home. I thought that was just amazing...ice cream cones at home!  When I was little, every Sunday after church we went to Grandma and Grandpa's for sunday dinner (meaning the noon meal).  All my dad's sisters would be there (except for Sister 3) and his brother.  My cousins would be there and it was such a good memory.  I miss those times. 

Now don't get me wrong, Grandpa had his faults.  He was a crotchety old sort and especially hard on my dad, (his oldest child).  They never did really get on too well, but the three of us spent lots of time together and they loved each other.  They were too much alike to get on very well, just like me and my dad are, although my daddy and I have a much better relationship than he and grandpa had.  He was hard on my Grandma too.  They were pretty much just like Archie and Edith Bunker, you know, from the TV show?  I don't remember him ever saying a cross word to me though.  I could ask him anything and I spent lots of fond hours at his knee, soaking up anything he wanted to tell me about.  He taught me about the proper way to raise livestock, how to make things grow and thrive.  He died when The Youngun was 18 months old and I still miss him so much. 

Left to right...Dad, Grandpa holding the Youngun, me......

Grandma got cancer when I was a senior in high school or maybe it was shortly after I graduated. 

It was such a shock to us because she was always so cheerful and happy,  always so healthy.  She got sick and they gave her 3 months.  She lived 3 years after that, always cheerful and hopeful. I miss her so much too.  When she gave you a kiss, boy you stayed kissed!  She's put both hands on either side of your face, scrunch it together and pull you in for a nice hard pucker right on the mouth.  Oh how I'd like to have one of those kisses right now!   She was always there when we needed her.  She'd call every single day (even though she lived only about 6 blocks away) to see how ever'body was.  Just callin' to see how you'uns was doin' is all.....  She died when I was 3 months pregnant with The Youngun.  A mercy at the end with the cancer and all, but it sure doesn't make you miss them any less.  The Youngun was her first great - grandchild and she never got to see her.  She did know about her though and that makes me happy.   Such a packrat Grandma was!  I remember once cleaning her freezer out for her.  I found bags of peaches in there that were 20 years old!  Grandma never took a music lesson in her life, but Grandpa bought her an old organ at the sale barn and she could sit down at that thing and play hymns by ear. Complete with chords and everything!  I don't remember Grandma ever sayin' a bad word about anybody.  She was always smilin' and happy. 

Grandma in the background, isn't she lovely!  My sister, me on the floor, who knows what I'm doing...Grandpa laying down.

Grandma, me, my sister

I do remember a time when she got fired up at me.  I was a young teenager, and Grandpa was havin' a bad spell.  I went down to visit them and talk with Grandpa, see what I could do.  Grandma went in the bedroom and said Charlie, Sarah is here and she's gonna have some toast with us.  Now I'd already eaten breakfast and wasn't hungry and was trying to lose weight.  I said Grama, I don't want no toast, I'm not hungry.  I'll never forget her lookin' at me with her eyes blazing......You are gonna eat some toast because I think if you eat Granpa will eat!!  Brother, I ate toast!  LOL! 

She willed my grandpa back from death I don't know how many times.  And then when she got sick, he kept himself going for her.  He was determined not to die before she did.  After she died, he just wilted away.  He pretty much stopped eating.  He was always a big solid man, a good 300 lbs in his prime.  He wasted away down to nothing after she died.  He'd go all day and eat nothing but a chicken leg.  I made a sort of spice bread/fruit cake that he really liked, so I'd make those up for him and he'd eat that.  They had brandy in them and I've never made one since he died.  Still have half a bottle of that brandy in the cabinet. 

Grandpa opening Christmas presents.  This was The Youngun's first Christmas as well as the second Christmas without Grandma..  Left to right...Grandpa, my mom, The Youngun, Dad, cousin L.  Sister 1, me in striped sweater, cousin K, cousin M (white sweater)

So many things make me think of Grandpa and Grandma.........every time I use a pressure cooker.  Every time I make vegetable soup, or cook neckbones.  Everytime I go fishin' or work in the garden, or hear an organ they come to mind.    He and Grandma were such a huge part of my childhood, such good influences on my life.  I like to think of Grandpa up in heaven, sittin' in his old fishin' chair, catching catfish and Grandma playing her organ and waiting for the rest of the family to get there so we can have a big ole Sunday dinner again!  They had a hard life financially and with Grandpa's health, but a rich one in other ways.  I love them both so much and am thankful to have had them in my life for as long as I did.

Till next time..........God Bless!