It seems like every August, we get a few days reprieve from the sweltering summer heat and get excited that cool temps, falling leaves, and pumpkins are just around the corner. This week has been a dream of working about the farm and enjoying outside. But I know, all too soon, the heat and humidity will once again remind us that it is still summer here in Kentucky. This time takes me back to my childhood so fondly.

 

I remember spending summer days with my grandma, watching her meticulously break beans, pink half runners, white half runners, greasy beans, and her favorite, white fall beans. Granny always had beans “put up”, but she rarely canned, her preference was frozen, as evident by her 3 huge freezers in her basement. But what I truly marveled at, was that every spare surface was covered in beans drying. She certainly loved making shucky beans, they would be on window screens, bed sheets, and even drying in the back window of her old, boat sized Buick. Seeing her panic in a tizzy every time a cloud rolled over, still makes me chuckle, flying out the door in her house coat, to see that the cloud was just passing by. She was so proud of her beans, and made sure we had shucky beans or fall beans or many times both, at every family gathering.

 

This year, is the first year I have actively put out a home garden. Oh, the joys of eating fresh out of the field, filling the freezer, and seeing all your work come together to produce something so delicious. However, my greatest excitement comes in the 4 small rows of fall beans, sowed from seeds from my Granny’s freezer. I cannot wait to save those seeds, freeze some, and shucky some, but more importantly continue that tradition and honor my Granny.