A homestead on Caney Creek.

One of the most memorable homesteads we have ever lived on was located about an hour and a half southwest of Houston on Caney Creek in Wharton County, not far from the community college where I worked at that time. Wharton is a unique town with a post-aboriginal history reaching back to the French and Spanish explorers. The surrounding land is rich and loamy and ideal for growing cotton. Great plantations and antebellum homes existed there at one time. The area is populated by giant pecan trees, centuries old, holding exciting stories no doubt in their massive trunks and branches, and great gnarled live oak trees which surely must have been covered with Spanish moss in the old days.

Europeans and American settlers first came to the plains of the Colorado River in 1822. Wharton came to be located on an area on the east bank of the Colorado River known as the Great Prairie Canebrake. This rich flood plain was covered with a dense stand of 20-foot switch cane through which flowed Caney Creek, originally a bed of the Colorado River.

The Colorado River runs through the town of Wharton on its winding path to the Gulf of Mexico at Matagorda. Caney Creek, with red, rich alluvial soil along its watershed, also runs through Wharton on its way to Sergeant at the Gulf and the San Bernard River is not that far away, not to mention Peach Creek which also passes through the county just north of Wharton.

Rivers make for human and animal life and thus help to provide a rich history. Karankawas and other tribes roamed this area before the Europeans arrived, although their tracks have long since been covered by the silt of the flowing waters. The flood waters brought rich soil down out of the prairie lands and rolling hills, and as soon as the water receded, daring and ambitious farmers swarmed back in to rebuild and to work the land. The early settlers had said the land would grow corn 14 feet tall with several ears as big as loaves of bread on each stalk, watermelons weighing a hundred pounds apiece, and cotton--yes cotton!--three bales to the acre worked by mule and slave in the old days, then by European immigrants and Mexican laborers, and finally farmed by tractors and picking machines during modern times.

The alluvial soil grew anything planted in it and the gardens on our Caney Creek homestead were prolific. Tomato plants grew tall and vigorous and produced a dozen or more fruits per plant, a number of them weighing more than a pound apiece, and most of them perfectly shaped and free of blemishes.

Great pecan trees grew along the creek providing beauty, supplementing income, and giving us shade in the back yard. I decided one spring to try to raise two crops of tomatoes, the first crop in the garden which received full sunlight planted in March, and a second crop planted about six weeks later. I hod watched the shadows of the big trees during the day and picked a spot that got full sun in the morning but became shaded during the early afternoon. My hope was that the mornings would provide enough sun for the tomatoes while the shade in the afternoon would protect the plants from the blistering heat of July and August.

My plan worked out well. After the first tomato crop began to fade, the second garden was just coming into its own. We enjoyed fresh tomatoes well into the summer. We ate fresh tomatoes every day for ninety consecutive days, and I never tired of them. Dottie would cut the tomato into slices about half an inch thick and sprinkle pepper and dill weed on them and all of the family enjoyed them, but none, I suspect, as much as I did. My love of tomatoes came from my mother's garden where she always put in a row in her attempt to provide vegetables for a family of seven children. I loved to pick a ripe tomato off the vine and eat it like an apple, the juice running down my chin. The problem was that with nine people around the table and because tomatoes had to be put up for the winter, there were not always enough fresh tomatoes to go around. Well, here on Caney Creek 30 years later, I finally got my fill of fresh tomatoes. We grew enough for making juice and canning tomatoes and sharing them with friends and neighbors, and still more than enough to have them on the table every day. Dottle knew how much I loved tomatoes, so she made it a point to serve them daily, sometimes even for breakfast.

The two older children were adolescents now and I attached a rope swing high up in one of the pecan trees and they would swing out Over the water 30 feet from shore and drop down with a big splash. I splashed with them sometimes but more frequently enjoyed watching them enjoy themselves. The rope swing became a drawing card and soon half a dozen children from the neighborhood would be there, plunging into the water on July days when the thermometer pushed 98[degrees]F. After they were all worn out, Dottle and I would serve some ice cold watermelon raised on the place. In this watermelon I did indulge, remembering my childhood when again there never seemed to be sufficient watermelon for everyone to get enough. On every homestead we have lived I have always made it a point to plant a surplus of tomatoes and watermelons, and we have all gotten our fill. In fact, today as I write from our homestead in Lavaca County, we have two acres of watermelons planted in a separate garden. "What will you do with all those watermelons?" a friend asked.

"Well," I replied, "we will eat until we can't eat anymore and then sell what's left."

Yes, we have sold melons for extra income, and also tomatoes, roasting ears, potatoes, squash and cantaloupe. Today however, the melons are more of a hobby than a necessity, a tradition that I am keeping alive for the benefit of grandchildren who now help harvest and eat the melons. And hopefully Dottie and I will still be here for great-grandchildren, keeping them supplied with juicy red-meated melons and other goods from the garden and hooking them on homesteading in the process.

We planted pecan trees of our own on the Caney Creek homestead, but did not stay long enough to benefit from them. We also planted a fruit orchard which likewise we did not get to enjoy. I never regretted it, however. The orchard provided treats for those who came later, and even the pecan trees eventually began producing. Growing quickly in the rich deep soil, they began yielding fruit in about eight years and now stand some 40 or 50 feet high, providing an abundant harvest of pecans every year.

My brother once referred to me as a modern Johnny Appleseed because I planted so many trees everywhere Dottie and I lived. I even planted trees on rented land during our early years. Again, no regrets. I feel that the hundreds of trees Dottie and I have planted through the years was a good investment in Mother Earth. I have planted trees when it was not considered politically correct to do so, and I continue to do it today. Each year at the family picnic Dottie and I give away as a door prize a tree we had propagated ourselves.

The corn grew tall on Caney Creek and we planted enough for roasting ears as well as canning. We would stagger plant the corn starting in late February, planting once every three weeks through the middle of April. Thus we enjoyed fresh roasting ears for about two months during the extended harvest season. Dottie's love for roasting ears rivals my love for watermelons and tomatoes. She recalled spring days while growing up when her mother prepared roasting ears often and the eight siblings all enjoyed them. She said that sometimes on a Friday for supper her mother would place huge piles of roasting ears on the table and everyone could stuff themselves to their heart's content, and they did just that because nothing else was served on those Friday meals except corn. They did it for economical reasons, I surmise, but thinking about it now, it makes a great deal of sense.

Thoreau certainly would have approved. He wrote in Walden, "My days in the woods were not very long ones; yet I usually carried my dinner of bread and butter, and read the newspaper in which it was wrapped ... And pray," he added, "what more can a reasonable man desire ... than a sufficient number of ears of green sweet corn boiled, with the addition of salt?"

We tried to freeze roasting ears with little success. They always tended to get mushy. We did slice the corn off the cob and pressure-can it in those days, and it was delicious. Today, perhaps because of arthritic fingers or perhaps of a lack of energy, we do not can corn anymore, but we still enjoy fresh roasting ears every spring and fall, and Dottie enjoys them the most.

Cucumbers also did well in the Caney soil and we enjoyed salad cucumbers each spring and fall and pickled enough to last us the entire year, dill pickles for me and sweet pickles for Dottie like her mother used to make. She also put up a gallon or so of bread and butter pickles from her mother's recipe. All four of the children developed a preference for dill pickles, but that did not bother Dottie--all the more sweet pickles for herself. Taste preferences 'are generally assumed to be learned, but I am convinced that genetics also plays a part. I have always preferred tart and tangy things such as sour pickles, spiced mustard, radishes, pomegranate seeds, wild grapes, lemons, grapefruit, and hall-ripe plums, while Dottie seems to prefer milder foods and has greater preference for sweets than I do. The children are mixed in their tastes, some prefer tangy and well seasoned, others prefer mild and sweet.

New potatoes and green beans was a family favorite on Caney Creek. We all watched closely for the first beans of the season and then dug into the soft ground around the potato plants and worked out small red potatoes, frequently about golf-ball size, without disturbing the plant. These potatoes were scrubbed and boiled, skin and all, and added to a bowl of steamed green beans with butter and onion. We sometimes made an entire meal of beans and new potatoes. We still enjoy them very much today. Besides eating the beans fresh, we usually snapped and canned enough to last us the entire year. Personally, I enjoy the pressure-canned beans as much as I do those fresh from the garden. From Dottie's recipe, they come out crunchy.

Squash was another of Dottie's favorite and she eventually taught me to like it. What's not to like about a bowl of tender sliced spring squash with salt, pepper, and onion added, and steamed in the microwave? My mother had a negative attitude towards squash which I picked up, but now I am a serious lover of squash the way Dottie prepares it.

We never had any luck preserving squash or cantaloupe. These we enjoyed while they were there. The fact that they were not always there has, I suppose, made them more dear to us.

Onions did well on Caney Creek and we enjoyed tender green dividing onions early in the season and also grew enough head onions to last us for several months. The hot, humid climate near the Gulf Coast is not ideal for storing onions and we had no root cellar, so we had to rely on store bought onions for a portion of the year.

We eventually moved from Caney Creek as I took employment elsewhere, but the hearts of all of the family members are filled with pleasant memories of the good times and the tremendous gardens we enjoyed there. We sometimes drive by the old homestead, now surrounded by expensive brick homes, and reminisce about those days. The pecan trees are still reaching high up into the sky and someone has a rope swing out there as we used to have. I feel as though I could blink my eyes and suddenly find myself 30 years back in time and imagine the small boy now running across the yard as my own son.

Here are some of Dottie's recipes:

Green Beans and New Potatoes

Wash and snap ends off fresh green beans. (I leave them whole.) Place into large cooking pot, and add enough chopped onion, salt, and pepper to satisfy your taste.

Wash new potatoes, preferably fresh from the garden, and leave skins on. Add to pot of beans. Add just enough water to be able to steam the vegetables without scorching. Bring to boil and then turn burner down to as low as possible and steam until done. Drain any excess water and add butter. Stir gently until butter is melted. Serve hot.

Fresh Corn on the Cob (Microwaved)

Cut off each end of the ear of fresh field corn and peel, leaving about three layers of shucks on the cob. Place in microwave and cook for two minutes. Turn each cob over and around and cook for two more minutes. Total cooking time for each cob is about four minutes. When finished cooking, peel off the remainder of the shucks. Most of the corn silk will come off with the shucks; the rest can be easily picked off with the fingers. Be careful, the corn will be hot! Add salt and butter if desired. Serve hot.

Fresh Steamed Squash

Wash the fresh squash and cut off both ends. Cut into slices about 1/4" thick. Place into microwave steamer and add chopped onions, pepper, and salt. Steam for approximately five minutes. Place steamed squash into serving dish and add butter. Stir gently until butter is melted.