Chicken and dumplings have never tasted so good
To the Expositor:
In my almost 90 years, I often look back in memory to my earliest pleasures, and some of these I’d like to share.
My parents moved from Little Current to Carnarvon Township on April 1, 1930 to a 100-acre farm with house and good bank barn with a smooth rock barnyard—the envy of many I’m sure. Ours were loving parents with four hungry children and a cat. Father had the minimum of machinery, a team of horses, nine cows and eventually, a dozen sheep which became about 200, some geese and turkeys and a sow pig. We were farmers.
One day when I must have been about three, father was busy at the barn and I was his only helper. I think he was busy shoeing a horse. The day must have been in the wintertime. The cattle were all out enjoying the sunshine and the little birds were in flocks picking away at what they could find. Noticing my father didn’t need my help at the moment, I decided to look after the sheep feeding at the back of the barn, along with the geese and turkeys and perhaps a few chickens. As I approached I noticed our pet ewe and gave her my attention. I then noticed our family cat. Upon seeing me she sought my attention too, so I bent to pick her up, as was her apparent desire. As I bent to my effort, our big red rooster, also in the neighbourhood, which my little sister and I, frequently while sitting on top of a rail fence sang back to him his song of defiance, came to the conclusion ‘vengeance is mine!’ and attacked. Of course being startled and caught off guard, I began to holler with defiant exclamations and perhaps a scream or two as he pecked at me. Father, meanwhile, hearing the disturbance, came running to find the reason. Within seconds that old rooster had lost its head, now in father’s hand. After checking me over to be sure I was not too badly injured, he handed me the now headless bird and said to me ‘here, take this to your mother.’ Since that day I have never tasted chicken and dumplings that tasted so good.
Ray White
London, formerly Manitoulin
