Country Connections: Next Gen

Hi, my name is Katie (Foreman) Budd. My grandma, Neoma Foreman, was a founding member of the Walker Community Betterment Association, an avid writer, and a lifelong citizen of Vernon County, Missouri.

I am grateful that the committee has asked me to help keep her memory and stories alive through this site! Grandma loved nothing more than telling stories about life on the farm, and the content was ongoing. I am going to use this space as a way to revisit some of her previous Country Connections, as well as to add new stories as the farm keeps on going through the next generation.

We are going to start with a good reminder that while our homes might not always look the way we want them to, it truly is the memories that we create in them that will stick with us.

A Sticky Situation

By Neoma Foreman; Edited by Katie Budd

            I like a clean house, but mine rarely is. My saying about it is that I try to stay at least one step ahead of being condemned by the health department.

            One spring, I had a surplus of eggs. My mother, two sisters, and I were together in my kitchen making angel food cakes and noodles for the freezer from them. Our daughter slipped a sign on the table which was covered with egg noodles and flour. She took a picture of the sign that read, “Condemned by the Health Department,” and tried to use it as blackmail.

            Sometimes messes are necessary to accomplish a task. We love homegrown sweet corn and peaches and put them in the freezer. Fresh strawberry and peach preserves and homemade rolls and noodles are other good messes. The end result is worth the trouble.

            It’s the everyday mess I can’t seem to stay ahead of. I finally got floor coverings that are the color of sand, fescue, hay seed, and a little dark thrown in for the mud. Since we are beef farmers, those are sometimes the nicer things I sweep off my floor. Maybe sweeping manure keeps me humble and gives me a sense of the true values of this world.

            If sweeping doesn’t do it, grandchildren surely do. Our great-grandson spent a day with us. He is almost two and is a fireball. Our daughter had purchased groceries the evening before and had left the non-perishables sitting in boxes on the dining room floor. My son and I were visiting in the kitchen, and the house was quiet except for a small crinkle, crinkle, crinkle noise in the dining room. I went to see what my grandson was doing. He had piled lots of boxes of pudding, cake mix, and whatever on the chair and had opened a jug of maple syrup, which he was proceeding to pour over the mix! He hadn’t gotten much poured, but do you know how far a half-cup of syrup can go? I snatched the syrup jug, grabbed the kid, and cleaned him while his grandpa cleaned the floor-chuckling all the while. All of the boxes of stuff had to be washed. I put them in the freezer to keep from being overtaken by ants. Whew! At least my house doesn’t smell like manure now—it smells like maple syrup.    

            An orderly house would be nice, something I could be proud of—instead of making apologies for whenever company drops in. Which, as I think about it, company drops in a lot. They don’t seem to mind that my house isn’t spotless. My home is to be lived in, and if living leaves tangible bits of family scattered and gives the rooms the joy and warmth of our life together, that’s okay with me. I am thankful for my family and friends and neighbors. They are treasures that are priceless and beyond comparison with a spotless home.