Whiteley Creek Homestead

In my childhood, we watched Leave It to Beaver, Father Knows Best, Casper the Friendly Ghost, and Bonanza on a black-and-white vacuum tube television…when it was working.

On cold winter evenings, my family would cluster in our small living room to watch T.V. while shelling dry soup beans that we had grown and harvested from our large garden plot. Recently, our youngest daughter, Jessie, came for a visit. To shell beans from my garden and experience a memory from my lifetime so long ago. It was a tender moment in time.

Sitting upon a shelf in my pantry, is a small jar of beans… shelled from pods growing on vines planted many years ago on my parents' farm when they were a thriving, viable source of nourishment for a family of twelve children.