#49 - Flora and Fauna of Drums #2 – Mammals! - Growls, Snorts, Bugling, and Digging
In our previous post we went small. It was enough to drive a person buggy, I’m sure! Flies buzzed, bees stung, butterflies flitted, spiders crawled, Praying Mantises snatched, and Katydids, well, DID! This post moves away from the Arthropods (Classes Arachnida and Insecta, to be specific) and goes BIG. The critters this post covers could be held in your arms, if you had a hankering to do that, or you could even climb aboard some of them for a ride!
We are taking a break from our examination of our human history of the family to now have a look at the NATURAL history that played a role in Drums and the Drum’s that lived here. Flora and Fauna #1 went small and looked mostly at insects; #2 goes BIG, for the most part, and takes a look at mammals. You know, bison, bear, elk, deer, horses, swine, chipmunks, woodchucks, cats, mice, dogs, coyotes, critters like that. Of course, lots of mammals feed off insects, but then, lots of insects feed off mammals so, I guess, what goes around comes around!
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| “…the words ‘Natural History’ really mean the history of all Nature’s works, both those which have not animal life and those which have.” Mary E. C. Boutell, Picture Natural History with about Four Hundred Illustrations,[1] probably published in the 1890’s and one of the many books found in the Drum Family Library. Look too close at the photo and you’ll note pages 9 & 10 are missing, so it jumps from a wolverine to a mole. Kind of shocking until you realize what’s happened! |
To my knowledge, Drums folk never ate any insects, not on purpose[2], that is; just insect products; like honey, for example. But I am CERTAIN LOTS of Drums folk consumed not only mammal products (like milk), but the mammals, themselves! Of course, once again, we bemoan the lack of letters, diaries, etc. that might help us get clues to the exact nature of their relationships with mammals, and I am sure that Nature played a big part, especially for the earliest residents of the Drums Valley! We can assume our Drums ate foods similar to what others of their time ate and we DO have recipes handed down from who knows how long ago, that incorporate meats, milk, and similar products. I’ve included a few of those in the endnotes[3] taken from my mom’s unpublished memoir she finished writing in 2010.
The assumption is they had pets, dogs probably, farm stock such as horses, sheep maybe, goats maybe, cows, and the like. We do have one primary source from the 1880’s that tells us we (Drums) had some farm animals running about then. That source is Elmer Drums’ wife, Ella Drum’s uncle, Jacob Santee. He kept a record of his farm’s income and expenses in a small account book in 1887 and 1888. His accounts include income from renting his bull, Dick, to service neighbors’ cows, and he sold eggs[4], milk, and cheese. His expenses included purchasing live-stock, butchering beef animals, and help on the farm, among other things.
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| Among the many pieces of “dust” this family has collected across the years is this little plate. It depicts the “Champion Harness Racing Horse of the World”, Dan Patch (1896-1916). This horse held (maybe still does!) the record for a mile: 1.55 ¼ set in 1905. At the bottom of the plate, we find: Compliments of Wallace E. Spaide, 20 South Wyoming Street, Hazleton, PA. I believe Wallace Spaide ran a grocery store in the early 1900’s on Wyoming street in Hazleton. |
Perhaps the oldest evidence that exists in our collection that shows we Drums had a relationship with farm animals is the Powwow discussed in the post Faith – In God. This prayer was part of a ceremony used to cure a draft horse of an illness. Of course there are the stories of the horses that pulled the stagecoach through Drums on its way between Hazleton and Wilkes-Barre, and the barns that were built for them (one of which can just be seen in the oldest known photo of Drums; included in the post George Builds a Tavern; a Place Gets a Name).
Of course, the closer we come to the present times, the more evidence, primary and secondary, we gain regarding Drums and their farm animals.
Top Left: Elmer riding a horse; Elmer (standing) and a cow; Harry handling a Draft Horse. Bottom left: the Schaffer’s stop by for a visit. Elmer raised pigs and sheep, too.
In fact, the horn of stories is full, so to speak, about animals both domestic and wild. So plentiful, in fact, that once again, there are too many stories to tell and most have already long been forgotten (again we hear the “no letters or diaries” whine), and STILL, there are too many!
My dad, Harry, loved to go family camping. He started with an old Army Tent, but after a few experiences waking up in the middle of the night soaking wet, tents leak in heavy rain downpours, he decided he wanted to sleep off the ground. So, he decided a tent-trailer was a better idea.
He couldn’t afford to buy one so he made his own. He bought an old trailer and built a box on it. He engineered the box sides so that they would drop down like “wings”, supported by poles beneath them. By affixing canvas over the opened wings, they would form the sleeping compartments. The photo shows the plans he drew to aid with its construction. He did a great job! I was VERY excited to go camping in it that first year.
So excited, in fact, that 10-year-old-me begged my parents to let me sleep out in the trailer in our backyard, alone, before we went on our camping trip. After I was all tucked in, Mom and Dad said “good-night”, and I was suddenly alone with just the moon to keep me company for probably the first time in my life. I fell asleep alright, but I was soon awakened by what sounded to me like a baby crying in the field below our house. I couldn’t see anything when I peeked out the tent flap, but I was now on HIGH alert!
Then the baby started crying again, this time closer. I still couldn’t see anything, and I wasn’t sleeping anymore that night, FOR SURE. Suddenly, the night stillness was broken again, this time by what can only be described as a “Banshee scream” and it came from right below my bed!
I was out of that sleeping bag and back in the house before you could say, “What was that!?” The next morning, AFTER the sun had come up, we all went back out to see what was what. Dad found cat paw prints in the dirt beneath my sleeping compartment.
“Tom Cat.” was all Dad said as he began folding up the trailer.
It was probably one of the cats (or two having a “discussion”) that hung out in Clyde Young’s barn next door. He liked to have them hanging around because they made short order of whatever mice they might catch; and they caught a lot. Not that his barn was full of mice; just that there were, and are, lots of the little rodents running around in the Drums Valley and some would occasionally venture into his barn.
In our previous post we discussed the problems of using “common names” instead of “scientific names” and here we have a perfect example. As one walks through an open grassy area in Drums, one might encounter a small, reddish-brown rodent with a pretty, white belly. You might say, “Look! A Field Mouse”. Your friend might answer, “No, it was a Deer Mouse!” In the end, you might both be right and you might both be wrong, or any combination in between.
In Drums, small reddish mice are usually Deer Mice (aka Field Mice) and will often enter manmade structures, especially in the late fall (They ain’t dumb!). Deer Mice are the mammal-critters I most often find inside Drumyngham. I opened our cellar door to head downstairs one December day only to find a Deer Mouse charging toward me up the banister. When it saw me, it spun around and headed back down. That spring I located all the places I thought mice might enter the house, closed them off, and drastically reduced the numbers of my uninvited houseguests – only two in four years, so not bad.
Deer Mice are not only a chewing and smelly problem, they are also a health risk. They sometimes carry a virus known as Hantavirus. This is a deadly pulmonary disease. The infected mouse defecates and urinates, the material dries and becomes dust, the person breaths in the dust which is infected with Hantavirus and voila, you suddenly have a bad cough and start spending hours in the doctor’s office! Best to keep the little fellows out of your house.
They were QUITE a problem before that, smelly and chewing up everything! Around 1957, my grandmother and my dad made some lye soap in the backyard, cakes of which we’ve saved still to this day. Since 2012 there are a few less of those cakes, however, because at one point, those invaders had gotten so hungry, they consumed two of the cakes we kept near the basement sink. All I found was a soap dish filled with mouse droppings. Well, at least they were clean mice – in more ways than one!
Mice have been a problem for mankind, including the Drums, from time beginning one assumes. Who knows, perhaps Philip tangled with mice back home in Germany, or even on the ship as he crossed the ocean in 1738. The ones onboard ship, however, might more likely have been rats, and we’ll get to them in just a bit.
That cabinet has now fallen back into favor (mine), was pulled off the back porch long ago, traveled with me up and down the East Coast these past 40 years as I moved from job to job, thus state to state (It is a well-traveled cabinet!), and now proudly stands once again back in its proper place in our Drumyngham Living Room, mouse hole, tin-patch, and all!
Snap! Snap! Snap!
Speaking of rats, were we speaking of RATS? If you’ve been reading these posts, you may recall the Pennsylvania Long Rifle George carried while serving as a Continental Solder during the Revolutionary War. Passed father to son down through the years, it became the possession of Nathan Drum (1868 – 1934). He was a coal miner who also had a farm to make ends meet. The story goes that he kept this long rifle loaded and propped in a corner of his barn. There it stood at the ready should Nathan see a rat in his barn. When he did, the long rifle made short order of that rat! I assume a few other critters found their demise at the point of that rifle, as well.
Nathan, apparently was big on shooting all sorts of “wildlife” that entered his yard. As I type this, however, I’m bothered by the notion that the story I’m about to tell is not about Nathan but perhaps about Elmer, or even Harry, or perhaps something similar happened to all three! However, I know Elmer had chickens and chickens play a role in the story, so let’s say it was Elmer, and get on with the story.
There are a number of fur-bearing critters who make their
homes in the Drums Valley and most of them cause farmers heartburn. Actually, I
think skunks
are probably the least of a farmer’s worries, but skunks, of course, have a bad
reputation acquired through their wonderful defense mechanism. Did you know
they can accurately hit their target up to six feet away?
No matter what you think of this, one thing is for sure, it was not healthy for the skunk! The beaded object beside the skunk Medicine Bag, by the way, is also a medical “bag”, this one is Baswara and made from a turtle shell.
If you’ve ever disturbed a skunk such that it felt cornered, or were ever even near a place when such an event occurred, you are familiar with the defense mechanism in question. It is an aroma. It is an aroma that is rather unpleasant, strong enough to bring tears to one’s eyes, often described as rotten eggs mixed with burnt garlic, except worse. If you’ve ever smelled it, you know what I’m talking about and will never forget it. If the defense has ever been used against you, or your dog, you know how hard it is to get rid of the smell and, therefore, you avoid skunks at all cost.
By the way, if you DO experience this defense mechanism first hand, you may be told to bathe in tomato juice. Now, you can if you wish, but that is a rather expensive way to fail to reach the desired goal. Now I don’t want to say that this method won’t work, in fact, it might help a little, but it is not really effective. Click on this Penn State link and they’ll provide the best answer (hint: hydrogen peroxide and baking soda are the key ingredients).
However, I was about to tell a skunk story so back to that.
One day, a skunk happened along into Elmer’s yard. Skunks are actually very good critters to have around because they eat insects, mostly harmful ones, especially grubs, which are notorious for eating the roots off lawns, vegetables, and so forth. You know a skunk has been by in the night if you go out in the morning and find a bunch of divots in your lawn. No, no one was there in the night hitting golf balls off your lawn. It was the skunk who came by to dig up and eat the grubs living below your lawn. So, that is great, unless you have chickens. You see, skunks adore a meal of chicken eggs perhaps even more than beetle grubs. So, what self-respecting skunk could pass up an unguarded chicken coop full of laying hens, which is what Elmer had?
Elmer grabbed his gun. Maybe it was George’s Long Rifle; maybe it was a shotgun of his own; but one thing for sure, Elmer meant business. Without given it further consideration, he took aim and fired. He hit that egg-stealing skunk square on, about tore that skunk to shreds. Of course, that meant the skunk’s sent-reservoirs were shredded as well enveloping the entire area in the strongest and most pungent of rotten-eggs-mixed-with-burnt-garlic aromas, lasting for days.
It was said that Ella suggested to Elmer that if he ever decided to do such a thing again, well, it was implied that he had best not. She then unloaded his gun.
Another critter that shows its stripes, but raises less of a stink over it, is the cute little chipmunk. Of course, they are MUCH smaller than skunks and, some say, much, much cuter, although last year I saw a skunk that was the most beautiful skunk I’d ever seen – large white stripe against that jet black, very pretty. But back to the Chipmunks, there is a family of ‘munks that lives near Drumyngham’s foundation.
We discussed mice earlier. Don’t confuse these fellows with mice. Some people do. I like the little chipmunk. In the fall it often sits on a log or rock, or on our porch, and calls out to whomever may wish to listen to it, a call that sounds somewhat like someone knocking on wood. They make a number of other calls, warnings, defenses. One sounds very much like a high-pitched “chip, chip, chip”; which I suppose is how it acquired its name, at least the first half. All in all, they are rather cute. I included a picture of the one that was living near Drumyngham in the post The Squirrel.
I don’t know if you’d call it a cousin, but Chipmunks do bring to mind squirrels. I wrote a post about squirrels sometime back. Have a look. I know that squirrels are just trying to survive like the rest of us, but I sure wish squirrels would try surviving by doing something other than eating the seeds we put out for birds. In fact, the squirrels are fun to watch so I really wouldn’t mind if they just came and had a few seeds and then went away, share and share alike. However, there is no “sharing” in the animal kingdom (except human children who are forced to do it). Squirrels will clean the feeder out! If that is a problem for you, if there is a squirrel about, you’ll never have peace.
Lots of us want to have peace. In the 1950 movie Broken Arrow, Jimmy Stewart plays a white man trying to make peace with the Indians. In the process, he falls in love with, and marries, a Native American woman. The tribe’s chief tries to talk them out of getting married by telling the young couple that they could never be successful anywhere, that he would never be accepted by her people, and she would never be accepted by his. The chief tells them they would be like bats, neither mouse nor bird, accepted by neither. Yes, I’ve changed the subject now to bats. People tend to be scared of bats. Folk lore says you should be mindful of bats when you are out walking at dusk because if you aren’t careful, one might get tangled in your hair (No self-respecting bat would ever do that; their radar is too good). Of course, we all know that it is the bat that changes into Dracula so, yeah, be careful.
However, really, there is absolutely NOTHING you need to fear from bats! Most bats living in the Drums Valley are insect-eaters. If you hate mosquitos, you LOVE bats. If you watch bats at dusk, you can see them zigging and zagging through the sky snagging insects in mid-air. One bat consumes 900,000 to 1 million insects each year. However, Bats have been dying in extraordinary numbers in recent years, mostly from a fungal disease. For example, in 2006, researchers visited one cave in Butler County (western PA) and found approximately 100,000 bats hibernating there. When they returned in 2011, they found 40.[5]
When my son, Philip, was very young, age 5 or 6, I would take him outside at dusk to see the bats. We would have fun tossing small stones into the air. The bats would change course and “attack” the small stone believing it to be a tasty insect. They’d catch the stone, then drop it, probably a tad confused (the bat, that is. I don’t know what the stone was feeling). However, the sight of that would send Philip into squeals of laughter. He remembers playing with the bats to this day.
Dad did a pretty good job of gluing the pot back together, I really must say! You can hardly see the crack on the outside (I circled it to help find it). It is easier to see the damage on the inside. I don’t think this is the day Mom first said it, but I do know it was ONE of the times my mom sighed and said, “I can’t have anything nice.”
Drums offers the wildlife enthusiast a number of other critters. For instance, raccoons (the only ones I’ve actually seen around here were smushed on the road, sorry to say. I do have a racoon skull but I thought it best not to include that photo), Opossums (the only ones I’ve seen around here were smushed on the road, sorry to say. No skulls kept of these so no worries there), rabbits (both hopping through the yard AND some smushed on the road, sorry to say), and White Tail Deer (both prancing through the yard AND some smushed on the road, sorry to say, although “smushed” is not quite the right word in this case. More likely the CAR is the thing that’s smushed, not the deer).
I suppose I’d rather be close up to a dead skunk than a live one, but I really hate it when the dead skunks I see, and/or have to be close to, are dead because they’ve been smushed by a car on the road. Think about what happened when Elmer shot the skunk and you’ll probably guess why I hate smushed skunks so much.
I do enjoy seeing the various critters as they stroll through the Drumyngham acres. I even wrote a little poem about them. It’s not the greatest ever written, but I like it.
Isn’t it Funny?
by Ron Drum
Itn't it funny How the little-bitty bunny Goes hop, hop, hopping 'cross the yard?
And it's a bit of luck To see a woodchuck chuck wood 'cause that's really hard
(both for the groundhog to chuck the wood, even if it wanted to, and to see it happen since it happens so rarely, if ever! But I digress)
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| Bunny tracks. The little one's that is. Those two big ones are mine. |
And isn’t it queer
To see a little deer
Go prancing past your door?
The crows caw, caw,
I think it’s a law,
and hawks above you soar.
And then the little bunny
Which I still think is funny,
Goes hop, hop, hopping away,
“I’m done with the show,
I’ve gotta go!
But I’ll be back another day!”
Oh, the joy it all brings,
My heart just SINGS!
And my spirit,
Why it just soars.
The "meteor" hit nearest the viewer
and "slashed" away, toward the top
of the photo. It was at that far end
that I found the round cavity
and where I now assume
are the baby bunnies.
On June 12, 2021, I noticed a spot in our lawn that I thought resembled what one might find if a very small meteor might have slammed into the yard. There was a long (12 inches) slash across the lawn that ended in a roundish cavity in the earth. I couldn't imagine what might have caused this. Too small for a Ground Hog, too big for a skunk digging for grubs. I wondered if it was a rabbit hole but why would it be right in the middle of the yard and not hidden away under brush or high weeds?
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| The "meteor" hit nearest the viewer and "slashed" away, toward the top of the photo. It was at that far end that I found the round cavity and where I now assume are the baby bunnies. |
I asked Google. Google's response was a photo that looked a lot like my "slash". I was beginning to believe it was the start of a rabbit nest! Apparently they do these things to create a bunny nursery. If the assumption was correct, I expected that the cavity would be filled in the next day.
It was. I didn't pull back the grass "lid" to see if baby bunnies were there. I just assumed they were. When Chris came to mow the yard, I suggested he not mow over the nest. He thought that was a good idea as well. If all is correct and things go as "planned", the new bunnies, about the size of chipmunks, should be joining the world on or near the fourth of July. Yup, Independence Day!
Other than the White Tail Deer, there is only one other kind of deer I’ve ever seen hanging out around Drumyngham, and then it was only for a moment on one evening, annually, and that was when I was still in single digits. I did capture a photo of these elusive deer and here it is.
There is a story about this, too. One year, probably around 1970, Mom hung this Santa above our front door. The holidays came and went; the decorations were taken down and stored away. Sometime around the 4th of July, I noticed Santa still flying over the door. I pointed him out to Mom and we both just laughed and laughed. We had forgotten to take it down and none of us ever noticed it until July. “Well, it is almost Christmas again,” I told her, “so, we might as well just leave him there until after Christmas!” Maybe we should have said which Christmas we were referring to! Santa is flying above that door to this day! I don’t know how he bears to do it!
Speaking of bears, Black Bears have been known to wander around the Drums Valley upon occasion. A friend of mine told me she was driving past the Butler Township Fire Hall (near the intersection of Hunter Highway [Rt. 309] and West Butler Drive) in mid-March of 2020 when a Black Bear decided to cross Butler Drive in front of her truck. She didn’t hit it. She just watched it saunter away.
Actually, these are the photos of me, Phyllis and the REAL
Black Bears in Maine in February of 1995.
Bears, when they are asleep as these guys were, are great fun. Another critter I had lots of fun around were Clyde Young’s cows! I liked them when I was little and I liked them when I was in High School.
When I was in High School, I got a job as a “short order cook” at a fast-food restaurant called Carrol’s Family Restaurant. Carrol’s was a typical hamburger-joint and I was the Fries Man. I made great French Fries, but I digress. I think it was 1974 when Carrol’s decided to try a new product, a hot roast beef sandwich. They had all kinds of promotions for the frozen slices of roast beef, special sauce, on a small hoagie-like bun, microwaved
Part of the marketing campaign involved bringing staff from area restaurants together for a conference, held in Wilkes-Barre. Each restaurant was asked to come up with some kind of publicity stunt to be performed at the meeting. Our West Hazleton store was staffed by High School Juniors and Seniors who were not “into” marketing stunts. We decided to pass on the “opportunity”, much to our manager’s dismay. The day of the meeting, we all were standing in the storeroom joking about the silly things we could have done, each one trying to outdo the other in craziness. Then one of us said, “Wouldn’t it be funny if someone brought an actual cow to their stupid meeting? You know, the sandwich on the hoof?” Everyone laughed. I told them that I lived next door to a dairy farm and wondered if we could maybe borrow one of Mr. Young’s calves to take to the meeting. I expected more laughter.
What I got was “Hey! That’s an idea! But how could we get it to Wilkes-Barre?” Fellow worker and member of my high school class, Jim Christman, said he had a station wagon and maybe that would work. So, Jim and I jumped into his car and we raced to Young’s farm, knowing the meeting was already started.
We found Clyde and breathlessly explained what we wanted to do – take one of his calves, in a station wagon, to Wilkes-Barre for the afternoon. Usually, Clyde was a sensible man but not that day. He said “OK, but don’t hurt the calf.” We caught one of his practically wild calves, wrestled it into the back of the station wagon. I climbed into the back with the calf to hold it while we drove, (big mistake – the hooves of a calf are hard and sharp!). Jimmy jumped in behind the steering wheel and off we went. I don’t really know how fast Jim drove but I do know I was tossed about quite a bit in that car on the trip north.
Once we got to the hotel where the meeting was being
held, we wrestled the calf out of the car and headed off to find someone to
show the calf to! They found us. It turned out to be a big deal. We were a hit!
We met corporate “big-wigs” and had our photo taken with one of them, and the
calf, of course. We even made the corporate newsletter, the only issue of that
publication that I ever saw, vol. 1, number 1, What’s Cooking at Carrol’s.
There we are, in the middle of page five. The caption of the photo reads: Rick
Hall, Associate Marketing Manager and guiding force behind the creation of the
Roast Beef Hero (kneeling left), poses with a future candidate for the Hero….”
Jim, standing, wasn’t mentioned. I, kneeling right, in my Hazleton High School
Band jacket, wasn’t mentioned. And that was it. We wrestled the calf back into
the car and Jim drove, more sanely this time, back to Drums. The calf was, I
hope, no worse for the wear. I was bruised in places I don’t much care to
recall.
When I was little, I really liked it when Clyde’s cows would make the “Great Barn Escape” and pay us a visit. Soon thereafter, along would come a few Youngs to herd them back to where they belonged.
One Thanksgiving when I was four, a few of Clyde’s cows stopped by the house for a Thanksgiving visit. Mom used to decorate her front window with holiday relevant decorations, Santas at Christmas, Bunnies at Easter, flags for Independence Day and turkeys at Thanksgiving. I was sitting on the floor, with my back to the window, coloring, when I suddenly heard a noise behind me. I turned around and there was one of Clyde’s cows licking the window right where one of mom’s turkey pictures was located. The cow was licking the turkey. We laughed about that at almost every Thanksgiving we had together, thereafter. And I ain’t lying!
Now there is a critter that hasn’t been seen in these parts for some time, but used to roam around here a lot – Lions! Not the African kind, the American kind. Call it a Puma, Catamount, Panther, Cougar, Mountain Screamer, Ghost Cat or just Mountain Lion, it truly is one of the grand American mammals. These big cats don’t tend to like humans very much. They tend to stay away from places humans like to go so few, if any, have been seen around here lately.
There is only one kind of mountain lion that still makes Drums
its home and here is a photo of it.
Sorry. I couldn’t resist. WE ARE! PENN STATE!!
OK, before someone jumps on my case, Hazleton Area High School also has a few cougars roaming its halls but those are in Hazleton. Just saying.[6]
Usually, all I find are animal tracks, or smushed critters on the road. On March 13, 2021, during a hike with my son along the LN creek below Drumyngham, we found these prints. I am not a great animal tracker but I believe there are skunk, racoon, maybe deer, and coyote prints in these photos.
Coyotes may surprise you, but that some of the tracks might be Coyotes is not a totally crazy idea. A number of Drums farmers have confirmed for me that coyotes are here and doing well in Drums. One Drums resident told me in days gone by that it was common for farmers to shoot coyotes from a second floor or attic window of their house if one was heading towards their chicken coop in the middle of the night! I’ve even found what appeared to me to be coyote tracks in my snow-covered park.
I really was not aware of coyotes being in the Drums Valley until February 19, 2015. Around 1:00am I awoke to hear the classic howl of a coyote someplace down in the fields below Drumyngham. It can certainly make the hair stand on end to hear that cry. I was glad I was curled up snug and warm in my bed, safe in Drumyngham.
When you wake from your nap, come back to the Drums of Drums, PA to see what might be flying over! Our next post is really one FOR THE BIRDS!
[1] Boutell,
Mary E. C., Picture Natural History with about Four Hundred Illustrations,
(Chicago, ILL: Thompson & Thomas, 1890?), p. vii, Introduction.
[2]
I’m the only Tree Member who I know of who actually, purposefully, ate insects
and that happened when I was living in Botswana. They collect a type of
caterpillar they call the Mopane Worm. It is prepared by removing the
caterpillar’s stomach contents and then frying the caterpillars similar to
potato chips or French Fries. You eat them like French Fries. They also make
the caterpillars into a sort of relish which they sprinkle over their sorghum
porridge. The fried caterpillars, to me, tasted like a combination of spinach
and walnuts.
[3]The following content is made up of excerpts from a
memoir my mom, Eleanor Shearer Drum, wrote (as of yet, unpublished), finished
in 2010, entitled My Recipes Book and Stories. Some of the recipes date
to at least 1918 but are probably MUCH older. I know that most were being made
and consumed in the 1940’s and 1950’s. I helped Mom make the Pot Pie in the
1960’s. In fact, why not go make some right now!?
Sausage and Mash De Lux
Place some mashed potatoes
in the pan, covering the bottom about a ¼ inch thick. Place six links of smoked
sausage on top of the potatoes. Cover the sausages with another layer of
potatoes. Slice 3 sausages lengthwise and lay them on top of the potatoes.
Cover this layer with the remaining mashed potatoes. Using a teaspoon, dot the
top with butter1. Bake in a hot oven2 for 30 minutes.
******************************
1To “dot with butter”
simply place a ¼ teaspoon of butter in various places around the top of the
potatoes.
2We believe a “hot oven”
would be around 400-425°F.
Alice’s Pot Pie
Place 1 ½ - 2 lbs of Beef
Chunck3 into a good size pot, filling the pot with water half-full. Start it
cooking gently. Let it cook for ¾ hour. Test for doneness.4 Add salt, pepper,
and garlic powder to taste. Take four stalks of celery. Chop the leaf part
finely. Cut the stalks into pieces approximately 2 ½ inches in length and add
to the pot. Add ½ cup chopped parsley. Peel 8-10 medium sized potatoes, cut
them each into ¼’s and add them to the pot. Peel and chop up a large onion and
add it to the pot. Let meat and vegetables cook slowly until meat and
vegetables are done.5 Remove the meat and vegetables and keep warm (for use
after noodles are added). Taste the broth for salt and pepper adjusting to
taste.
Pot Pie Noodles
Use6 one sifter7 (three
cups) flour, dash salt8, 3 teaspoons chopped parsley, and one beaten egg. Using
your hand, slowly work in 1 ¼ cup cool water. Form into a ball. Roll out small
amounts, thin as possible.
Bring broth to a boil.
Roll out and cut into squares to make noodles. Drop noodles, one at a time,
into the boiling broth.9 Stir after each addition. Let cook ½ hour longer until
noodles are done.10
Finish the dish by cutting
the meat and vegetables into small pieces and returning them to the pot.
You can serve with bread,
muffins, biscuits or just alone as is! Serves 12 – 15 people.
***********************
3“Chunck” is a term mom
used throughout her life. For a long time, I thought she meant “Chuck Steak”
but it turns out that “chunck” was just the way she spelled the word “chunk”!
So here she simply means “a chunk of beef”!
4 Mom does not explain how
one knows when “doneness” is achieved but is probably when blood no longer
seeps from a hole poked into the meat. Yes, a temperature would be better but
this is what one gets from “handed-down” recipes!
5 Once again, she does not
explain how to know when things are done, however, if a potato piece easily
falls away when poked by a knife or fork, it is done.
6 I believe she means “mix
together” when she says “use”.
7 A “sifter” is a can-like
device with a wire-mesh bottom. On the side is a crank handle attached, inside,
to two wire “beaters”. By turning the handle, and thus the beaters, when filled
with flour, the cook can be sure that the flour will be added evenly and
without clumps – or so mom told me. Her sifter holds up to three cups. This
process is referred to as “sifting” as in “sift some flour” (run it through the
sifter).
8 One imagines a “dash”
equals a “pinch”.
9 When I was a small boy,
mom would allow me to drop in the noodles making sure I didn’t splash. It was
one of my favorite things to do!
10 No longer doughy.
*****************************
Ella (Elmer Drum’s wife)
loved to bake and baked all kinds of wonderful goodies. Now this first one,
however, the Milk Molasses Pie, is one I am not familiar with. I don’t ever
recall her serving it to me, or seeing her bake it and I never made it myself
so have no idea how it tastes, but it sure looks easy and it really sounds
good! Ella and Elmer praised it highly! … The…Milk Pie, is one I had at her
house and thought very good. I had never heard of such a thing before but there
it was just beautiful and very tasty. I don’t remember ever making it, myself,
however.
*******************************
Ella’s Milk Molasses Pie
Make your favorite pie
dough and line a 9” pie pan.
Mix together 2 rounded
tablespoons flour, pinch salt, ¼ cup sugar, and 3 tablespoons table molasses.
Heat 2 cups milk and add
it to the mix. Blend good. Pour into pie shell ¾ full. Bake 400 degrees for 10
minutes, then lower heat to 350 and bake 45 more minutes.
*******************************
Ella’s Milk Pie
Make your favorite pie
dough and line a 8” pie pan.
In the pie shell put 1 cup
brown sugar, salt, 3 tablespoons flour. Mix good with your index finger.
Pour evaporated milk
(canned cream) over the sugar mix. Do not stir. Dot with butter. Sprinkle with
cinnamon. Bake 350 degrees 50 minutes until bubbly. Filling never quite
completely sets but pie is very good.
*****************************
[4] I
realize “eggs” are not mammal products, but when used in this sense, it felt
odd not to include them.
[5]
Thomas, Mary Ann, “Study: Fungal disease killing over 90% of three bat species
in PA”, TribLive, Saturday, April 24, 2021. https://triblive.com/local/regional/largest-study-ever-finds-fungal-disease-killing-over-90-of-three-bat-species-in-pennsylvania-and-elsewhere/
[6]
I’m not finding many images of the actual HAHS Cougar so maybe it’s even more
elusive than I thought!
