The Maza Win Project
Maza Win: Iron Woman
"Grandma was always doing something. She had a big garden, maybe what today would make up four or five city blocks. She had corn, beans and squash and she kept the garden very clean. She was always out there, bent over, pulling weeds. It never had any weeds!
In her garden, just like everything else, everything had to be just so. She had three cellars., one in the house and two outside. She filled them each with different crops. These cellars were very deep and narrow at the top. Logs were used to prop up the roof of the cellar. She used a long ladder to climb down. It was dark down there. I remember going down in one only once. She had built little walls or fences to seperate the different kinds of squash and pumpkins. I remember looking up, and it seemed very deep, and i could see the stars up there. Isn't that strange?
When the cellars were full, she would cover them up with cardboard and straw and manure, to seal them up. She would tell us to do this , put things up for hard times.
Grandma always had a big scaffold to dry her food on. She made lots of jerked meat, and she would dry it up there. She had a big stick with two leather straps that she used to frighten the birds off.
When the corn was ripe she would pick it and put it in big piles on the ground. She would invite people over there to help her put it up. They would peel the husk back and then braid the husks together into long, thick braids of corn and then hang these over the scaffold to dry. This was always a good time. The one that braided the most would get a gift of clothes, blankets or cloth.
She never did use those things in the cellars. They were for other people. In the spring the people would have no money and would run out of groceries. They'd come by to see her and Grandma would open her cellars and feed the people. A lot of people would come by."
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