This is Home, Part 17 - Helping Uncle Doc with the weeding, or Bye-bye rhubarb, Uncle Doc's pet goose, company

This is part 17 of my mother's book about her life, written in 2004.



Helping Uncle Doc with the weeding, or Bye-bye rhubarb

Uncle Doc had a hoe with a long narrow blade. He used to tell me he was "going grubbing." He was going to take the weeds and roots out.

I noticed some weeds in the yard between the meat house and the fence, so I decided to help him out. I pulled them all out, then I went in to tell Mom. She got this strange look on her face and said "where?" When I told her she said "Oh, Maudie, that was Uncle Doc's rhubarb."

He loved rhubarb pie and looked forward to it every year. When I told Uncle Doc, he didn't say anything except "Hmmm."

Uncle Doc's pet goose

We had six geese at one time. An old gray goose took a fancy to Uncle Doc. He talked to it and fed it. It kept getting into the yard and following him around. He was tired from work one time when he came home for dinner, so he curled up in the yard to rest. This was in the warm weather. The goose came and stayed beside him.

I took a picture with my little brownie camera, a somewhat blurred picture.

Company

We had company every weekend for years. I should say every summer weekend. They just showed up on Sunday. Poor Mom spent hours cooking. Mom cooked a special dinner for them with pie for desert. They admired the house, how nice the yard looked, admired the beautiful view from the yard with the rolling green hills in the distance, told Mom how good her cooking was, and sat around and talked. They were Daddy and Uncle Doc's ages, so no children. It was always a husband and wife. Sometimes two families came. These were not people from our neighborhood. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when the roads were bad and they couldn't come. This doesn't include relatives.