GREAT information, Sharon, and so beautifully written!!! I think the dishwater was needed as a surfactant... I spray my citrus trees with it when they get aphids....

MUST try your spray against slugs on the leaves.....

Hi Carol,

I'm sure you're right.
Slugs, ugh. Lots of salt for them.

Thanks.

"We had a lot of early morning dew in the mountains, Shoe. Remember?"

Yeh, I remember. That's how I washed between my toes, walking through the wet grass on the way up to the hard road to catch the yellow bus (to carry me off to second grade). :>)

Shoe (heading back out to a mid-summer type hot day, in April. Ugh.)

I lived on the side of the mountain so I had to walk 'down' out of the holler to the hard road. And there was hot black tar on the hard road so I had to wear shoes to walk the mile to school. Tar is really hard to get out from between one's toes.

Hank used to pop tar bubbles with his bare feet

I just remembered I "had" an enamel dishpan and someone had painted it with huge bright colorful flowers. I wonder where it is and why I can't find it

I had school friends, mostly boys, who chewed that black tar and made bubbles.
Oh yuck.
It's a wonder any of us survived.

Now I want a dishpan.

"Hank used to pop tar bubbles with his bare feet "

Yay, Hankster! So THAT'S how he attracted your attention, Vic~! :>) The show-off! *grin And ya'll have continued to live happily ever after....

Back later...next cool-off break.

If you can find an enamel dish pan, I bet you could paint your granny's from memory.

The one I had was all hot colors - red, yellow, orange. I used it for a fruit bowl or making salad in. For the life of me, I can't figure where it's gone missing.

I'm so inept at painting, I'd have to use stickers or something

No, Hank never chewed the blacktop stuff. blech...

Sharon, I still think you could write bestselling books with your great stories, story-telling gift, and recipes. Thanks again for a fun, informative read!

Thanks, KY. I keep saying I'm going to do that, but the truth is I can't make up my mind whether or not to self publish or to go with the publisher who wants to make changes. And actually there are two stories within all my stories, the informative part and the cultural aspect. One publisher wants the informative part, sort of a textbook approach for say supplemental info; the other appreciates the cultural side of the articles, preserving history, that kind of thing.

The truth is, it would be hard for me to separate the two because everything I learned was within that cultural heritage that I weave into the stories. I just want the stories to be as they are, not picked apart and categorized, but publishers keep wanting to classify information, classify topics and I don't write that way.

It would be more difficult to sell without a publisher behind it, but if I self published it would be done my way. I keep telling myself there are a lot of major authors who originally self published, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Stephen King and John Grisham. Not that I'm that noteworthy or that good, but it is encouraging to know that they did it their way.

Plus I get a little miffed at editors who keep wanting to change my words to fit today's common everyday more proper language. Can you imagine somebody telling me to quit saying "I reckon" and "Up in the holler"? Well, shoot, I wouldn't have a thing to say if I couldn't use those words.

More info that you wanted, but that's the dilemma I find myself in these days. Thanks for your encouraging words, they are always much appreciated, Renee! If I ever figure out what I'm going to do, I'll probably tell everybody.

I vote to self publish

That said, I reckon I'll wander back yonder and see how much rain we caught in the back pond - over 2" in the gauge

Is the back pond in the back forty, Vic??

More like the back 21 but I wish we had 40 acres

After our parents died my brother and I had 41 acres of mountain left to us. And the house we grew up in. We were talking about what to do with all that virgin mountainside, untouched by anything except us because it had been a land grant to one of our great+ grandfathers years ago. We didn't really want the house, neither of us, but we knew we wanted to keep the mountain.

So I said to him, 'Let's sell the house and the one acre it sits on. We both know all we need is the upper back 40.'

So now all these years later, my brother and I still have the 'upper back 40', and that's what we still call it. Our upper back 40. I get the upperest back 20 because I'm the oldest and I was there first. Plus he always does what I say.

I always joke that I have a back 40.... feet

Sharon, I love the way you write, don't change a thing, if possible self publish.

Yours is probably an upper back 40 too, Allison, upon that terraced area.

Margaret, thank you so much.
That's always good to know.

That is so cool that you still have it

and we ALWAYS listen to our older sisters

A publisher would be a fool to change your words! What's the sense in writing a book about mountain life without mountain language? I agree, self-publish.

That's about right, KY. Thanks.