“THE YELLOW SHEETS 
VOL. 2, NO. 9 

So far this has been a mild win- 
ter. The ground hog certainly saw 
his shadow, hence we must expect a 
late spring. Much of January was so 
mild that spring plowing has started. 
But February has started in with 
what my Grandmother called 
“sneaking cold weather’’—bright 
sunshine and a piercing cold wind. 
The blizzard which has brought so 
much suffering in the North has 
brought us sub-freezing temperature, 
winds and discomfort, but not zero 
weather, and no snow. 
BIH lg PS ais 
THRILLING EXPERIENCES 
Mrs. Helen Leach, Middleburg, Va. 
When | was a young woman [| 
was very fond of big game hunting 
in the Rocky Mountains of Colo- 
rado, Wyoming and in Northwest- 
ern Canada. We lived for months at 
a time in such isolated places that 
we were over a hundred miles from 
railroad or drug store. 
I slept in a tent on the ground and 
all the food was cooked in frying 
pans and skillets. | learned to make 
bread in these skillets. For pot roast- 
ing a chunk of venison, we would 
get a hot log fire going, then dig a 
deep hole, put in it a lot of hot em- 
bers, then the pot with the meat and 
a little water and salt was set in the 
hole and the lid was put on. The 
lids were somewhat saucer shaped 
to hold the hot embers put on top 
of it. The hole was covered with 
dry soil and left for the whole day 
while we went hunting. 
All we had to eat was the meat 
we got from game we killed, trout 
from streams and canned tomatoes 
and a sort of bread from flour. We 
had no fresh vegetables such as even 
potatoes. We carried everything on 
pack horses as the trails were too 
rough for wagons. 
My last trip was in winter with 
MARCH-APRIL, 1947 
L. D. COLE, Grannis, ">, 
Setar pin ae IDE 

30c FOR 12 ISSUES 
Bo 
ey 



ae, 
Fe hz ea 
nine feet deep apd, teripbra- 
tute at 40*below, It fag ofthe 
tee 
wprst,, storms. known évei? in that 
part of the ‘countty,j but I stood the 
old’ and; hardships bétter than did 
t for'l ‘did not, touch alcohol. 
Mrs. Leach’s description~-of the 
cooking makes me a little homesick 
for my old homestead. In cold 
weather Aunt Kate and | cooked in 
our fireplace which was built to take 
4/4,-foot backlogs and 6'4-foot fore 
sticks. Aunt Kate always insisted 
that possum cannot be _ properly 
cooked in an oven. In those days it 
was nothing uncommon for no one 
to go to a store of any description 
for as much as three weeks at a 
time—no one in the whole neigh- 
borhood. Naturally our recipes and 
menus were different from present 
time. Ail families had cast iron 
cooking vessels. 
A favorite breakfast cereal which 
I have not tasted in many years was 
prepared thusly—late in the after- 
noon, whole wheat was washed, put 
in a small container which had a 
fitted lid, usually a lard bucket, salt 
and water was added. An iron din- 
ner pot was set on a trivet at one 
end of the hearth, the small bucket 
tightly covered was set inside the 
pot and water added to nearly the 
top of the bucket, then the pot was 
covered. Hot embers were put under 
and banked against it and then they 
were thickly covered with ashes. At 
bedtime the pot was uncovered to 
see if more water was needed, the 
embers and ashes raked away and 
replaced with fresh and deeply cov- 
ered with ashes. 
In the morning the wheat was 
hot, swelled and tender and _ thor- 
oughly cooked. Eaten with sugar, 
sometimes a little nutmeg and plenty 
cf heavy cream, it was almost a 
meal in itself and so good. _ 
