Autumn Buckwheat and Cider

It’s time again for the Autumn Buckwheat and Sausage Festival in Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania. This year the date falls on October 14, 15, 15, 2022. The tradition of using buckwheat flour to make pancakes goes back much farther than the beginnings of the Ohiopyle Buckwheat Festival which started in 1947. The festival had very humble roots, starting out as the fund raiser for the Ohiopyle Volunteer Fire Department and by the community wanting to keep alive the history of the area. The Buckwheat Festival still remains the chief fundraiser for the fire department.

The early method to fry sausage and “bake” the buckwheat cakes started out by cooking the food in cast iron frying pans over single burner open gas flames. The spiced and ground pork was hand-shaped by helpers before they made their way into the skillets.

That way of cooking continued at least until 1974 when I started to volunteer there to spend time with my-wife-to-be, Cindy Morrison. For a few years, my job was to wash dishes. That was a major undertaking. It seemed there was always something to wash.

Later I was pressed into service baking the buckwheat cakes. It was a move up in responsibility. This takes sweat and special care. By then, the wide griddles had been introduced. It was a hot job. The temperature of the griddles must be maintained for an even baking of the cakes that limited the air flow to that room. Smoke and heat quickly accumulated and at times it became very uncomfortable.

I was “rescued” by my father-in-law, Elmer “Bud” Morrison to fry the sausage. Soon afterwards, the sausage frying area converted to the wide grill surface. Each grill will hold nearly 3 dozen of the sausage patties. At last count, there were a dozen grills set up to thoroughly cook the pork patties before serving them to the guests. I’ve volunteered for nearly 50 years.

Chris Fennimore and WQED television often come. One year they recorded the Buckwheat Festival for a program on volunteerism. Usually WQED repeats a showing this time of year. Most years he makes the trek from Pittsburgh to visit the festival.

Once cooked, the sausage patties are placed in huge roasters to be transported upstairs to the dining area or to the school building next door to keep the patties hot and ready for those who come to enjoy the autumn leaves, Ohiopyle Falls, and the meal. The only change in the menu was the addition of pancakes for the younger generation. Steaming stacks of buckwheats, pancakes, sausage, freshly fried potatoes, bread and butter pickles, and applesauce are placed on the table “home-style” to assuage the hunger of the diners. 

Riches Come and Riches Go

I’ve been trying to sort through things that have accumulated, old receipts, old checkbooks, odds and ends of information, and the like. I’ve been tossing them into a two chamber egg crate until it was more than overflowing. I thought I might leave a trail and a chore for my kids to follow once I decided to shuffle off this mortal coil, but finally decided to leave them a much cleaner slate to deal with. When I reach the bottom of the storage box, I may have an idea exactly how many years I have been hoarding all of these records. I know the initial reason I’ve stored receipts was for proof of paid bills. I was told it was necessary to keep records for three years, but once the three years were up, I had no desire to root through the pile of accumulated paperwork. The papers will help heat my house this winter.

Among the massive pile of printed material were Christmas, thank you, birthday, and get well cards. I found a few old calendars that I’d saved for a friend who likes to take inspiration from photos to use as she paints. Delving through each layer of paperwork was like opening Pandora’s Box. One thing I found was a note to my wife Cindy from her students telling her to get well. This was before she was hospitalized and died from ovarian cancer, but the poignancy of the recognizable names and sentiments still reopened old wounds.

I started to write this blog about something that I found buried in the remaining stack of papers, but if I only told what that item was, I wouldn’t have been able to write a full blog. So I wanted to share my experience of wading through all of the flotsam that I’d collected over the years. In an envelope I discovered a check that hadn’t been cashed. It was for a sizeable amount, but it was issued January 20, 2022 and not valid after 120 days. I was shocked. I called the company and after I was transferred to several people, I found the reason I’d not cashed it was that the check was from my retirement fund. Because of Federal mandates, I was required to take money from that account. It happened years previously requiring me to pay taxes on the withdrawal. I decided to have the money sent directly to my church telling Uncle Sam to keep his paws off my money. I’d forgotten I donated it. So I wrote void across the check and tossed it into the burn pile. 

 

Homemade Toboggan

            Snowfalls one winter were light and fluffy and not at all conducive to any type of winter sports or play. We couldn’t afford skis. The snow wasn’t wet enough to pack into snowballs, make forts, build snowmen, or tamp down to pack trails for our sled runners. The snow was good only for toboggans that could ride on the top of the snow.

            Les Hall was a neighbor kid. He was older and had access to more tools and supplies than we did. He decided to build a toboggan of his own. It started with a plank that was nearly sixteen inches wide, eight feet long, and an inch and a half thick. That would be the seat and body of the toboggan.

            From another unused board, he shaped four “runners” twenty-four inches long with one end cut into half an arc.  Using several wide chrome strips from junk cars, he shaped them to follow the curve of each runner, attaching them to the curved runners. Two runners were connected by a wooden frame making a pair of runners for the front end and a pair for the back. One set was attached directly to the rear board seat and the other was placed in the front to allow for steering.

            Les drilled a large hole in the front end of the toboggan board, inserting a shaft through the hole in the platform and through the hole in the front runner’s platform. Between the platform and the seat were two large, greased washers that would allow the wheel affixed to the shaft to turn the mobile runners for steering.

            The result was a large, weighty, cumbersome lumbering monster, but it was finished and we were anxious to try it out. It wasn’t beautiful, but would it work? It looked like a creation from the Little Rascals’ comedy clips.

Dragging the behemoth behind us on a rope, we got it to the top of the hill. Les hunched over the wheel, his feet resting on the front runners for extra steering control. The rest of us kids pushed the toboggan and jumped on as it began to move. We made it to the bottom of the hill, but there wasn’t much speed. It was too heavy and the width of the runners wasn’t large to allow it to glide along freely.

            Riding the toboggan was better than doing nothing at all, but it was so heavy that we called it quits after struggling to get the toboggan to the top of the hill several times. We stored it and then we went home. I don’t believe we ever used it again and have no idea what happened to it.

Sunrise and Sunset

I am fortunate enough to live in an area where beautiful sunrises and sunsets abound. I often share photographs of shots I’ve taken on Facebook. The variety of colors and designs are endless. Clouds often change shape and reflect the wonderful light from the arriving or departing sun.. Sometimes the moon makes an appearance before the sun disappears for the day.

My house is located higher up in the Laurel Ridge with an open field to the East of me that is lined with trees at its far side. I also have a pasture to the West of me bordered by trees and a higher hill. The scenery alone is beautiful, but their colors and shapes change with the seasons sprinkling even more interesting details.

I’ve seen the sun as a hot glowing red ball just beginning to peek over the horizon to the East as the day begins. It spreads its red light onto the clouds that scurry by or swell up into huge behemoths of white and gray. Clouds act as “movie screens” reflecting the sun’s distinctive hues of the sun. Often the East field is sometimes shrouded in dew, veiled in a low hanging white fog giving it a misty otherworld appearance. The colors of autumn add a patchwork of color and winter decorates the trees in ice and snow. There are some days when the rain storms into the area and hides the sun behind a thick curtain of clouds and downpours. On days when the sky is free of clouds, the sun rises as a white hot orb hovering at the top of the trees. The dew quickly dissipates in the heat.

All day the sun travels over my home to its destination in the West. As it settles in for the night, it often leaves red lip-prints as a goodbye kiss, staining the horizon. Sometimes it is a bright, bold color while other times it’s just a hint of color as if to say, “Don’t worry. I’ll be back tomorrow.” I believe that God uses the sun, clouds, trees, and skies to show His attention to detail and the routine of each changing day and season for us to know that He is reliable and faithful. 

 

Flax Scutching

Over the past weekend Stahlstown, Pennsylvania held its annual Flax Scutching. The Scutching has been going on for over 100 years. In the past farmers grew flax and used its strong fibers to make thread. The thread was woven into linen material for clothing. The flax threads were also combined with wool fibers to create linsey-woolsey cloth. Bothe the linen and linsey-woolsey were sewn into clothing.

The Scutching was an assembly of farmers who gathered to soak the flax plant, beat apart the fibers, comb them out, then twist the fibers into thread on a spinning wheel. Later, the threads were placed on a loom and woven into cloth. Not all the farmers could afford the machinery and equipment to “scotch” the flax, so that was why the assembled in a community effort.

The annual Scutching was larger this year. There was a goodly number more vendors selling their wares. Several tented booths were selling craft items, ground wheat flour, cornmeal, and buckwheat flour. Several food areas selling sandwiches, buckwheat cakes and pancakes, soups, ice cream, and funnel cakes. Some vendors were selling maple syrup or honey.

In the main pavilion there was an area where “actors” demonstrated the acts of beating the flax to separate the thread, combing, spinning and weaving the tread into linen cloth. In the rest of the pavilion were areas set aside for historical displays of local photographs, authors selling their books, and our Chestnut Ridge Historical Society table. Our display this year was photographs of schools, the classes and the actual buildings. I did my duty and worked my three hour shift after eating a hamburger and a chocolate ice cream cone.

I can’t sit for that long and often got up to talk with the authors and people moving through the displays. An author who had 5 different books was in his 90’s sharing his history in the Navy and afterward as a sunken ship locater. One of the divers under him also dove to recover the U.S.S, Hunley, a civil war submarine.

Another author was selling his several books of the paranormal along the different roadways in Pennsylvania. A final author had books of the local Native Americans and areas they lived with maps. He also had a display of arrowheads, pottery, and a hand carved war club with the huge ball on the end. It was made especially to bash the heads of the enemy.

Because I was unable to leave the Society’s booth unattended, I couldn’t watch the reenactment of the Native American raid and burning of the settler’s cabin, but the loud retorts of rifles reverberated in the warm evening air.