Autumn is Suh-Weeeet!

Autumn pulls me in.

In fall, my trips to town that should take 30 minutes become 45. Or more.

I roll down the windows, turn on the heater, and crank up the music. My old friends, James Taylor and Johnny Cash, and my new friends, The Avett Brothers, ride with me as I take back roads and side roads and dirt roads and curvy roads through the mountain countryside.

I often pause to watch flocks of turkeys or a family of deer graze in fields and pastures I drive by. How can I zoom by a sight such as that?

A farmer on a tractor waves at me. I don’t know him, but I am stopped on the side of the road to appreciate his final movement of dirt until springtime. Is he tilling it? Or just turning it over? And why is he doing this in October? Is it something that I need to do with my field? I don’t know.

Our grasses are turning golden and brown. Our gardens are no longer green either. And many green plants now have black tops and tips from our frosts and freezes.

I learned my first autumn here that I need to wear waterproof mascara starting in October. I take in the beauty of this place I call “home” and sometimes it leaks out of my eyes. I can’t help it. The colors are magnificent. The chilly mornings are invigorating. The fur on my horses has become thick and fuzzy. Is it possible that they are even cuter today than they were yesterday?

There’s just something about fall on a farm. Sure, I’ve always admired the beautiful changing leaves and mums in bloom, but now that I live closer to nature and the turning of seasons, I feel it deeper. The leaves put on a show. They show off their new temporary colors or red and orange and yellow. Appreciate it while you can, because those jewel leaves are just one rain storm away from falling to the ground and becoming litter.

I was washing dishes the other day and a mighty breeze blew into our valley. Suddenly my backyard was filled with leaves swirling and tumbling to the ground. I turned off the water and ran out the screen door without even drying my hands. I chased leaf after leaf, trying to catch just one before it made it to the ground. I’ve always heard that your wish will come true if you make it while you catch a falling leaf. Barefooted, stepping on small stones and sticks (ouch, ouch, ouch) because I was looking up, not down. I wasn’t able to catch a single leaf. The ground was now strewn with leaves. I go back inside and finish washing the dishes, realizing that I didn’t have a wish ready anyway.

The thought occurs to me that I need to be a better leaf raker. I jot that down in my mental notes: find time to rake more leaves. Get them out of my yard and into my garden.

Each autumn I have lived here, I’ve gone a bit deeper on the back roads. One thing that is interesting about back roads here is how so many of them are dirt and one lanes. It makes meeting a car tricky sometimes when you look and realize that you’ve got nowhere to move over to–you’re at the edge of a wooded cliff. There are also a lot of one-lane bridges in my area. Whoever gets there first gets to cross first. That’s the rule. No one ever breaks it out in the country. These are your neighbors. You treat them with kindness. No pushing, no breaking in line. A lovely way to live. (I always know when I meet a tourist. They either don’t know the one-lane rule or don’t adhere to it.)

On Saturday, I’m headed back home from an errand in town. I lollygag, take time to take in the gifts of the day. Isn’t this one lane road gorgeous? With that stone underpass?

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And how about this one lane bridge?

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I stop on it to watch the river run.

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To my right is this beautiful farm.

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I continue on home and then see this sign.

 

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Two things. That sign. And that white horse. But I drive on. Time is short and I have much to do. Plus, I had been taking the scenic route all morning long.

But before I knew it, my hands were turning around the car. I was headed back to that white horse and that “molasse making” sign. (Was there faint ‘s’ at the end? or not? didn’t matter. I was apparently going to the molasse or the molasses making today.)

I pulled in. When I got out of my car, I immediately smelled a sweet aroma–that must be the aroma of making syrup. Some folks were gathered around a large farm table, fixing themselves plates of food. Some other folks were gathered around a large boiler. And some folks were just standing around visiting. I joined the standers-arounders-visiters.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that this was a gathering of neighbors and friends. There were a few of us there who didn’t know anyone, but for the most part the folks here knew each other. It dawned on me that the the sign probably wasn’t an invitation for strangers to pull in (oops). It was to let neighbors and friends know that THIS was THE day, THIS was THE Saturday in October when molasses was being made on the farm.

But, of course, where I live people welcome strangers as friends. So the farmer came up to me and welcomed me by sharing tales of the history of his farm and family. He also explained the syrup making process. I was fascinated. I had always heard my Dad talk about making syrup when he was growing up. He grew up on a large, self-sufficient farm outside of Atlanta. They grew sorghum cane and took it down the road to neighbor who had a mill and a boiler. There was a time, my friends, when you couldn’t just run to the local grocery store and buy anything under the sun you ever wanted no matter the season. There was a time when those is New England got maple syrup and those in the south got sorghum syrup. If they were lucky, that is.

As I saw it, making syrup on the farm had 7 steps.

  1. First, the cane has to be planted. The farmer explained that he had grown the cane in an adjacent field on old family land. The cane field is off in the distance. Farmers here call this “sugar cane,” but it’s not the same “sugar cane” that crystallized sugar is made from. This is sorghum cane. I know the farmers here call the corn they plant to eat “sugar corn” (the corn they plant for cattle feed is simply “corn.”), so I think this may be how sorghum cane became referred to as “sugar” cane in this region.IMG_5406
  2. Then the cane had to be harvested. They become thick stalks and must be cut. Most farmers do this by hand, with a machete or other tool.
  3. Next the long, green leaves (reminded me of the leaves on a corn stalk) have to be stripped from the canes. This was a job that all the kids joined in on.
    1. The thick canes were fed into a mill in order to extract the liquids. The mill was powered by his PTO on his tractor. (As an aside, I learned that PTO stands for power take off. Never knew that before.) Horse power–REAL horse power–is still sometimes used to run mills, but using a tractor is apparently quicker and easier. The mill squeezes out the juice from the cane. Now, that little cane he is feeding into the mill here is not an example of the thick canes they use to make the juice. He was simply showing me the mechanics of the mill with a little scrap he picked up off the ground. Even this little scrap produced a few drops of cane juice though.IMG_5398
  4. One the juice is milled out of the canes, it is taken to be cooked in a gigantic rectangular open boiler pan. This pan was probably 6ish feet long by 3ish feet wide. Big! The cooking process is a combination of science and art. The syrup must reach a certain temperature and then stay there for hours. Too hot of a fire ruins it.IMG_5394
  5. During the cooking process, friends, neighbors, and family would take turns skimming off the top of the syrup. Do you see the skimmer to the left? It is a metal perforated skimmer on a long broom handle. The green that they are skimming off is chlorophyll and other plant matter.IMG_5396
  6. It is cooked for hours. After which, it is bottled in jars.

(If you’re interested, I found this video that shows the syruping process I saw. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CSZ6-GH_sI)

Molasses making was a community activity in the “old days” and it still is now, in the “new days.” Relatives, first cousins, second cousins, friends of cousins, neighbors, friends of neighbors, cousins of neighbors, friends, friends of friends, facebook friends, etc. come to the farm on syrup making weekend in October every year. While I was there, the farmer would bring someone over to me or take me over to someone and say, “Introduce yourselves.” Instantly, I became part of the group and part of the syrup making fun. They even asked me if I wanted some of their feast of food spread out for the workers. (The people where I live are even sweeter than their syrup. For real. Their kindness touches me every single day in some way.)

At my request, my husband made pancakes Sunday morning just so I could open a jar and try the sorghum syrup from the farm. It has a very distinct flavor, one my husband didn’t love. (Of course, in truth, he likes that fake syrup junk that I refuse to eat.) For me, each bite came with a mouthful of thoughts about the sweet moments I shared while I watched it being made. It was delicious! I added even more syrup after I took this pic. IMG_6441I’ve lived in the south my entire life, but I don’t think I’ve ever tried sorghum syrup before. It tastes like nature, earthy and grassy. It tastes authentic and real.

And to be clear. Around where I live, in the Appalachian Mountains, sorghum syrup is called “molasses.” (So there was probably an “s” on that sign–maybe their pen ran out of ink.) But it isn’t what we city folk know as molasses, that rich, thick, dark, bitter-sweet syrup that is a by-product of making sugar (so not a farm thing.) The darkest and bitterest molasses is “blackstrap.” That’s what I’ve always used in my gingerbread and gingerbread cookies.

And if you want to sound like you are from around here, you need to know how to correctly pronounce it. It is not “sor-gum” like you would think. It is “sog-rum.”

Here’s one recipe I’m trying next week. We are hosting the community ATV ride, with smoked BBQ and a big bonfire afterwards. I think home-made ice cream would be a fantastic addition to the menu. Especially this one that screams autumn.

Sorghum Ice Cream

Ingredients:

2 cups heavy cream

4 cups half & half

½ cup cane sugar (I might change this to brown sugar)

1 cup sorghum

12 egg yolks

¼ teaspoon sea salt

Directions:

Heat cream, half & half, sugar, and sorghum in sauce pan until steaming.

Gradually temper in yolks and then add sea salt.

Thicken mixture over double boiler until it coats back of a spoon.

Chill in refrigerator until it reaches 40 degrees.

Freeze in ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s directions.

(I found this recipe at http://thelocalpalate.com/recipes/sorghum-ice-cream/)

Sorghum butter is another thing I’ve heard about, but never tried. I’m going to make that too. It’s just whipping together 1 cup of butter with ½ cup sorghum syrup. I bet that’s unbelievable on biscuits. Or cornbread. Yum.

Making syrup is more than just a farm process. It’s an autumn tradition on the farm that brings together family, friends, and community to lend a hand and even more importantly, to just spend the day together and visit.

Every day in autumn is sweet, but syrup making day is SUH-WEEEEEEEET!

Until next time, Friends, savor the flavor of life!

Lots of love, The City Farmgirl in the Country, Rebekah

  1. Mary Rauch says:

    What a wonderful post! Could NOT stop reading until the very end. This took me back to autumn in West Virginia when applebutter making in a huge copper kettle took all day and involved a large group of friends and family….ahhhh, memories.
    Thank you Rebekah! Your one-lane pictures make the hair on my arms stand up.

  2. Diane Van Horn says:

    I knew you would turn around and go back! The old skills are almost lost. We need to pass them on to the next generation. We take so many every day things for granted that used to have to be made by hand. I believe that it is causing the “Disease of Ease” in our society. The whole process from planting to boiling that sorghum cane is a study in patience and appreciation. Thank you for letting me “lollygag” along with you. By the way, you are the first person besides myself that I have come across, that uses that word! Which got me to thinking about it and I looked it up. I always use it in the context of taking my time or enjoying the moment but was shocked by what it used to mean! https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lollygag
    Interesting, maybe I will start using Meander or Saunter instead!

  3. Wendy Curling says:

    ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

  4. This process closely resembles what they go through up here when we make maple syrup except instead of squeezing canes we’re collecting sap. The cooking at high heat is the same, though. Reading this reminded me that I just bought a jar of molasses for a cookie recipe I want to try. Now you’ve made me hungry … I’ll have to get out my pans and start baking! Thanks as always for taking us along as you travel about your sweet little world. Love it!

  5. Denise betz says:

    Hi Rebekah,
    I just needed to say that I look forward to your posts. You are living a dream of mine. You made it happen through hard work perseverance. Thank you for sharing your stories and thoughts.
    Please think about writing a book…
    A dedicated reader of The City Farmgirl in the Country,
    Denise

  6. Ruth Yarbrough says:

    Loved your article :)!. Last weekend we went to the Sorghum Festival in Blairsville, GA. They make it there just like you were talking about, only they used a big, handsome Mule to get the syrup from the cane. You would have loved him. He was whitish and huge :)!
    I’m really not a fan of Sorghum, but love our Sourwood Honey, and New England Maple Syrup. Non of the artificial stuff from the stores for us :(!

  7. Beautiful! Fun! You should know that I live vicariously through you.

  8. Brenda Towsley says:

    I have never had sorghum. This was really informative and you are the teacher today. We get to learn along with you! You are also brave to just stop and join in. I would want to, but would not. I know I miss a lot that way. I only like the real maple syrup also. My grands like the other, the stuff I actually fed my kids because of budgeting. The scenes you have shared are beautiful. I hope someday to visit your area along with so many other spots in the US I have never seen. Thanks for sharing! Enjoy your fall!

  9. Debbie says:

    Beautiful words. I feel it too… Thanks for the lollygag through your world xo
    Deb

  10. Krista says:

    We make our own syrup as well. Of course it’s nothing like their process. My husband hates store bought syrup. I don’t mind it because I grew up using it but I can agree his homemade syrup does taste better. I love your beautiful pictures of your autumn. They definitely are inviting. Good luck with your ice cream and butter. Let us know how they turn out.

  11. Renee Fisher says:

    Rebekah – wonderful account of your fall experience! Here in the Ouchita Mountains, we have the same thing going on with those one-lane bridges and narrow, dirt roads…always a bit of a thrill to get by unscathed! To add to your listening pleasure as you drive those roads, I would like to suggest Gillian Welch’s “The Harrow and The Harvest”. On that cd, you’ll find stories that relate to the kind of country living we’ve chosen – a farmer and his mule (Hard Times); missing home (Down Along the Dixie Line); and lot’s of longing, which (to me) always seems appropriate for Autumn. Oh, and thanks for passing on the notion of catching a falling leaf to make your wish come true…I’ll add that to my little stash of fun things!!

  12. Elaine C says:

    My mom (98) is from Rabun County and there was a sorghum mill in their community, so the syrup was part of my life growing up in Metro Atl. We generally used it for baking and for “sopping sogum”…..as in dredging home-made biscuits through a puddle of syrup on the plate. The old ways are quickly disappearing and it is such a shame. I have had good sorghum in many years now.

  13. Marilyn says:

    I love Autumn. Unfortunately, my neighborhood’s trees are not turning color.

    Marilyn

  14. Joan says:

    Thank you for a great day of visiting! Love’n the farm life. “Sog-rum” is an acquired taste but one that is worth it. Happy Fall y’all! Go bless.

  15. Susan Abernethy says:

    You were blessed that day!! We make sorghum Syrup and it is a family tradition that my husband and I turned into family business. It is a special time of the year for us and all the people that help us and stop by. Glad you had the opportunity to experience it!! I love to cook with it, and anything you would use brown sugar in you can use sorghum. Enjoy!

  16. Carla J says:

    Love the one lane roads, we have a few around here. Here is up north, in the mitten, the west side of Michigan. The town just north of us has a one lane under the old train tracks which is now a bike trail.
    Your story of the friends pressing out sorghum for molasses reminds me of apple cider making. Apple cider fresh from the press is wonderful, makes apple juice that is bottles and sold in stores seem like yellow colored water.
    We lived in southern Georgia for a few years and there were a few farms around that still used the mules in a circle to make those presses go.
    Love to learn how things were done in the past. Always makes me appreciate what I have today even more.

  17. Susan a says:

    Im so satisfied with buying juice and syrup at my nearest farmers market. Enjoy not having to do this..,glad someone else does enjoy making their own syrup and juice. Thanks for sharing

  18. Vivian Monroe says:

    Rebekah, thanks for sharing. We have become so busy we have stopped taking the time to take to the back roads unexplored. Thank you for making me see how important it is to take the time to enjoy all of God’s beautiful creation. So interesting too the molasse cooking procedure. Cant wait to jump in the car now and go exploring our back roads of NC. Be Blessed.

  19. Pamela deMarrais says:

    Rebekah, that is a fascinating story and process! Folks here tell me that they used to make it, but I don’t know anyone who does now. I guess that we are too “citified”. We do make apple butter in the big kettles over a wood fire though.
    I love reading about how you are soaking in everything about life I. The country and especially on a farm.
    Thanks for making us a part of it!

  20. Denise says:

    loved this post it made me think back to when I got to see this in action when I was a kid. they did use horses for the power then though! I do remember quite a few people there helping or watching the process. I was in awe of the horses hooked up and going around in that big circle to make it all work. Now my Grandad would put some sorghum on his plate then put a big pat of butter and just mix it all up then put all that on his biscuits. I have to say I have done that too and it is good!! thanks for the memories with your story!

  21. Tracy says:

    Loved! This story.reading it @ 1:50 a.m.. I had to read until the end. I was like why would you not turn in to see what was going on? And you did! But then I thought how many signs like this have I passed without giving it another thought? Probably a lot. From now on maybe I will turn in as well.

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